


A Bride Comes to Pemberley

by archea2



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Angst and Humor, Arranged Marriage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gothic, Halloween, Mirrors, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12831162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: "My aunt de Bourgh saw fit to attend on your family and, through an unhappy combination of cards, ratafia and your mother’s – " (here, Mr Darcy bit his lip) "persuasiveness, to wager my hand at Quadrille. Against, I should say, my strictest warnings. She lost; I am yours; let me, by all means, pay the forfeit at the altar. I am a man of my word, however little it was consulted in this matter, and you need not doubt that I shall make you – a winner in effect."(In which Elizabeth comes to Pemberley a most reluctant bride, only to find that Pemberley is not all that it seems.)





	1. Chapter 1

The autumn sky on either side of the chapel roof was mostly cloud-coloured, and it was a sky of two minds: sulky, yet headstrong. As was the bridegroom. Elizabeth, who prided herself on her faculty of discernment and had longed to practice it in the course of the last forty-eight hours – the duration of her engagement – now found it useless. That Mr. Darcy was displeased was evident, for he was leveling his gaze at the Michaelmas daisies in her hands and, to judge by _his_ cloudy complexion, not liking what he saw. 

"Miss Elizabeth."

"Mr. Darcy."

"Your father" (Mr. Darcy’s eyes now strayed towards the premises within the Rosings chapel) "has given me to understand that, by his own terms, he will not be marching you to the altar."

 "Not quite," said Elizabeth. "The terms were mine, though he complied with them readily. We may not, sir, have another opportunity to talk before _the deed is done, and ‘twere well (_ to your aunt’s mind) _it was done quickly_."

Mr. Darcy flinched darker. A gentleman born and bred, he must have known her _MacBeth_ quote for what it was, though he did not take it up. Nor did he deny Lady Catherine’s wish to have her engagement with the Bennets, lock, stock and musket wedding, over within the briefest delay. 

Instead – "And it shall be so," said he coldly. "My aunt de Bourgh saw fit to attend on your family and, through an unhappy combination of cards, ratafia and your mother’s – " (here, Mr. Darcy bit his lip) " - persuasiveness, to wager my hand at Quadrille. Against, I should say, my _strictest_ warnings. She lost; I am yours; let me, by all means, pay the forfeit at the altar. I am a man of my word, however little it was consulted in this matter, and you need not doubt that I shall make you... a winner in effect."  
  
"Hold, sir!" Elizabeth tossed the posy aside and grabbed her reticule. "To insult me may be _your_ gambit. But I beg leave" - she had coloured, and now shook with a passion of feeling - "to think myself no less offended by the cards. They, at least, owe me reparation."  
  
She now took out a deck of cards, which the gentleman could only look at with a bewildered eye.  
  
"You… do not wish to step to the altar?"  
  
"Only if I lose this hand," Elizabeth replied, as she settled herself on the chapel steps. Before her, in the chapel’s yard, the tombstones lay in the open grass; keeping each other loose company, not unlike the cards which Elizabeth now fanned out on the stone. She raised her chin, meeting her intended’s eyes with defiance. As for Mr Darcy, he still looked exceedingly puzzled. "Then shall I keep my tears to salt my broth. Come, sir! and be gay: I am told that I am quite improved at vingt-et-un."

 

* * *

 

It is a longstanding jest among the respectable and informed, that a wedding breakfast should either be a very small or a very large affair. If the one, it will grant the newly-weds a shorter time in which to endure the scrutiny of the gathering; if the other, the boon of privacy found in early and unnoticed disappearance.  
  
Mr. Darcy’s nuptials were neither one nor the other. The company was scarce, but the banquet most refined, although not near so warm-hearted as might have been thought to befit a wedding. It consisted of cold veal in aspic, cold ham ditto, chilled white wine, _fruits glacés_ and white currant ice which Lady Catherine’s cook had apparently decreed fit for the occasion, perhaps as a revenge for being told at eight that (a) her mistress would be home at noon of the same, (b) with a party of six, (c) including a bride. 

Such cold comfort was not of a nature to raise Elizabeth’s spirits. She touched her lips to her congealed spoon, shivered, and walked to the nearest corner of the living-room so as not to stand in the way of cheers. Lady Catherine had exceeded herself in keeping the wedding a family matter. But it did involve one loud clergyman, now being most persistent in his complimentary strain. The same that had suddenly, and very provokingly, opened the chapel door so as to inquire after the bride and groom and stepped on Elizabeth’s ten of spades.

There had been no putting off the vows, then, not when Mr. Collins had made his _sortie_ flanked by a nerve-amok’d Mrs. Bennet.

"Come, come, Lizzy." And now her father was seeking her out, his concern for her barely screened by his wryness of tone. "Marrying in haste may be our family trait, but is it not early yet for repentance?"  
  
They looked at each other, shrewd in their mutual love.  
  
"It seems a little hard, sir, that I should be gambled away to quash a proverb."  
  
"Well, you know your mother. When it comes to you and matrimony - better soon than Saint Never's day."  
  
"But you, sir –" 

"Lizzy, I did put my foot down. Trust me, child, I did. But it could hardly quash Her Ladyship."

 "Who could?" exclaimed the new Mrs. Darcy; then, in lower tones, "Not Darcy, to be sure, and yet he seems not a man who would suffer gladly to be made a fool. It is all so extraordinary. Why would he let her interfere thus far, or turn him into a gaming counter? What can he possibly think will come of this?"

 "Perhaps he hoped for the worst and prepared for the best." Her father, whimsical as ever, had gone back to quashing the proverbs. "He did have forty-eight hours to know you, my love."

"And I him, and am still unprepared. What am I to –"

"Put the gift horse under a magnifying glass, Lizzy. Hopefully - " But Mr. Darcy, by now recalled to his duties as a married man, had joined their party.  
  
"Are you fond of horses?" he asked Mrs. Darcy. The abrupt inquiry had her start before she could recollect herself. Mr. Darcy flushed uneasily, as far down as his billowing necktie would allow him, but carried on. "Pemberley's stables will, of course, be at your disposal."  
  
"I am never so happy as when I walk." Her answer had come quickly - so quickly, indeed, that Elizabeth felt the need to amend it. "But I return thanks for your thought, and double them for your acting on it."  
  
"Thus settling my point." And the elder of the two gentlemen smiled. "As I was telling your wife, sir – all good things come to a beginning."

 

* * *

 

Elizabeth's first wifely duty did find her unprepared, but willing. For no sooner had she set foot in Pemberley, and been paraded through a double row of servants, that their commander-in-chief, one Mrs. Reynolds, murmured, "Tea will be in the library, my lady."  
  
Elizabeth gave her a grateful smile. Having not partaken of the wine, punch,  _eau rougie_ , and such refreshments as had been provided earlier, she now found herself, as all young ladies do who make a point of abstaining in public from a meal, in favour of a private sip. Yet with the sip came Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth braced herself for him, and the pot, which turned out to be china and twice as heavy as her mother’s. Tea, like her wedding, was to be solemnized. She took a breath; turned to her fully lawful husband; and, keeping the pot between them, asked, "Do you care for weak tea or strong tea?"  
  
"A dangerous question," said he, "for to answer it might ruin me in your opinion. Ladies are apt to see signs and portents in our every taste.  _Strong_  will speak of an obstinate temper, and  _weak_  of a lack of any. Shall I say mild?"  
  
If this was banter, it came out in such a stiff delivery that Elizabeth, still wrestling the old and majestic Sèvres, could only reply, "I may be a weak hand at providing it. My sister Jane dispenses tea at our home."  
  
Thoughts of _our home_ and Jane hosting its tea-table brought a jab of home sickness. She poured, careful not to fill his cup to the rim, and willed  her mood away while he bowed and took the cup from her hand. She expected him to drink and rise at once, but instead he said, "And are you all very varied in your tastes?"  
  
"Oh, indeed." Elizabeth found herself warming to her subject, even as she poured for herself. "I myself am an indifferent drinker. But my sister Lydia will have the first bloom of the pot, while Mother can only endure the palest brew. Kitty wants cream last and lemon first, and Mary will have green and lecture the pot." The talk had animated her, and, before she knew, she had picked a Bath bun from the plate  most thoughtfully set by Mrs Reynolds. "But Jane sees to every whim and leaves us all at ease. I have been very fortunate to have her -"  
  
She could not finish her sentence, and, suddenly sated, laid her spoon across the empty cup.  _This_  sign did not escape Mr Darcy's notice. He rose and excused himself, saying that Mrs. Reynolds would see to her needs. There was nothing left for Elizabeth but to watch him depart, though she was surprised when he paused at the door.  
  
"Ease is not my forte, Miss -" (the speaker hovered, uncertain as to the best way of address) "but I would not have you speak of your sister in the past. At least, accept my strong and unchangeable opinion" (stiffly, yet not unkindly) "that she will be welcome any time that she chooses to visit here."

Another pause. Another bow.

"I have greatly enjoyed our tea."  
  
She could hardly echo this. But as he strode out of the room, she found her spirits mysteriously revived and, being left with more appetite than gloom, applied herself once more to the buns.

 

* * *

 

That same night found Elizabeth alone. It was clear that Mr Darcy thought ill of being a husband in anything but name, and had accordingly confined himself to the Master's bedroom. Only a door separated his from Elizabeth's quarters, but eleven came and went with no knock to its wood – no noise, indeed, but the soft chime of a mantle clock.   
  
She was thus at leisure to examine her position. While she could not pretend to find it  _agreeable_ , it had so far proved less of a trial than a hazard. Mr Darcy, it was true, was an enigma. A gentleman who had been all pride on the church steps and all mortification at the altar ("I dare say that I must"), yet had sensed her own plight and answered it with tea and sympathy. To say nothing of a third Darcy, who had retired hours before sunlight, leaving it to his servants to light the bride’s candle and wish her good night.  _That_ Darcy had not improved upon acquaintance, and the prospect of sharing even a token marriage with such a Harlequin gave Elizabeth no pleasure.  
  
Unable to find sleep in a strange bed, she rose and threw a shawl around her shoulders. Her candle was still lit, and she longed for a book. How foolish, she chided herself, to have spent an entire hour in Pemberley’s library and not possessed herself of one! Still, she could find her way back to it. There was only a staircase to brave, and the harvest moon shone full at this time of year. Holding her candle before her, she took a step to the door, then two –; laid her hand on the knob –; turned it, and found herself facing Mr. Darcy in the corridor, his face a livid patch above his dressing-gown and his hair uncharacteristically tousled.  
  
Elizabeth, while still a maid, was no green girl when it came to the night. But this vision was enough to draw a cry from her.  
  
"Sir!"

"Where were you going?" asked he.  
  
His voice was sharp, a stimulant for Elizabeth, who rallied her spirits and answered, "I felt in no mood for sleep, and thought a turn outside -"  
  
"This will not do." Mr. Darcy spoke with agitation, though he now appeared to recollect himself. "I beg your pardon. But I cannot have you ramble thus in my house at night - I must insist that you stay in your room."  
  
On being spoken to so rudely, Elizabeth's own temper now deserted her, leaving her in a position to match his words, if not his violence. "Pardon _me_ ," she said, "for thinking that myself, as well as my sister, had been made welcome in your house."  
  
Mr. Darcy did not budge, but the candlelight caught the faint colour on his cheeks.  
  
"You are," said he curtly, "if you grant me leave to make you safe as well."  
  
He looked as unyielding as ever to let her pass, and Elizabeth, swayed by shock and incredulity, had no repartee for his. All she could do was to repudiate her faith in his better parts, nay, in his common humanity, while he  _raised his hand_  –

 

 

 

\- and put her candle out.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The morning brought Elizabeth light. But there its kindness stopped, for it fell short of bringing clarity.

She was once again left to herself at breakfast, which was taken up to her room with every solicitude owed to yesterday’s bride. Whether the fine, jolly, bright-eyed maid who laid down Elizabeth’s (restorative?) chocolate thought anything of her looks was not to be inquired into. Elizabeth thanked the girl and sipped at the drink; immensely vexed at the part which she must needs play, yet careful – she told herself with no common degree of irony – to express lack of sleep rather than a surfeit of exercise.

Her next step was to elicit the detail of Mr. Darcy’s whereabouts. His behaviour the night before had been a good way off – that is, abominable – the very thing for a Turkish pasha, but highly improper for a gentleman, let alone a denizen of the Age of Sensibility. Shirk breakfast he might, but he would not shirk an explanation.

But the housemaid could not say; wished that she could say; had been very near asking Cook this morning if she should take a tray to Sir, Sir being no doubt in need of one; would never ask again, to be sure, Ma’am, after being called a sauce box and told that Sir had consumed all of his kippers and would be back to fetch his lady at noon, this being their day-after-wedding day and the first of a fortnight of visiting.  
  
It is, indeed, customary for a bride to spend her first two weeks in other people’s houses: a means apparently devised by the older and wiser as the most efficient way to make her feel at home. Elizabeth already longed for it to be over. The fortnight would entail more than pantomime - it would force her to lie openly, since she could not very well own that her present good luck came from her mother’s at the Quadrille table.  
  
As luck would have it, Lady Catherine’s house was their first call. Elizabeth, who had expected her to cut the newly-weds without mercy, having sacrificed so much to honour, was startled to be greeted as ‘Niece’.  
  
"A gentleman’s daughter, " Lady Catherine told the assembly after pronouncing her day-after-wedding dress ‘suitable’ – a two-edged sword in Her Ladyship’s mouth, but spoken almost benignly. "My nephew could not have better chosen."  
  
"La! dear Mrs. Darcy,  _do_  say how he courted you." This from a gushing young lady in a white Malamouc cap and a tizzy. "Was he a _perfect_ beau? Did he recite verse _?_ "  
  
Elizabeth felt Mr. Darcy stiffen at her side. He had shown up on the first stroke of noon, handed her into his coach-and-four, and then shown a most inventive genius at keeping silent while they rode. You would, sir, Elizabeth told herself, if only to prevent  _my_  inquiries. Let us then put you to trial. I may see more of you in a moment’s flare than I would in a fortnight of propriety.  
  
"His courtship," said she, "reflected upon him in every respect. He was quick to notice my taste in books. And most firm in his opinion that it ennobled a young lady, and ought to be indulged by all of our kind... in the daylight. His first gift to me, with my father’s permission, was an eyeglass. Dear, dear eyeglass! I shall keep it to my dying hour."  
  
Mr Darcy now broke into speech. "A mere crystal. Miss Ben – my wife likes to exaggerate."  
  
"A pince-nez would have been better," said the Augur of Rosings. "It has vastly improved Anne’s sight: she could read all of Virgil these days, if she felt it in herself to learn Latin."  
  
"How picturesque!" cried the gentleman on Elizabeth’s left. She suspected him of making a liberal use of the word, for he had already bestowed it upon her fan, Pemberley, his hostess’s cutlery and the pig raised by Mr. Collins.   
  
"Well, but did he behave prettily?" the girl insisted.   
  
"Oh, in the extreme." Elizabeth paused to savour an olive. "Why, he would not suffer me to risk a staircase alone."  
  
"I hope," Mr Darcy said in louder tones than might have suited a lunch table, "that caring for a lady’s welfare is not accounted a failing."  
  
"Five ladies," Elizabeth edited charmingly. "To say nothing of Mamma. It was when I saw him prepare to lift and carry her across Sir William's ha-ha that I knew, in my heart, that I could not refuse him."

 

* * *

 

Mr Darcy was not to be laughed at.

This Elizabeth now discovered, as the ladies removed to the drawing-room and the gentlemen joined them after a short delay, oiled by a little wine to the proper degree of animation. Mr Darcy’s cheekbones alone stayed their un-rosy selves, while his gaze stayed aloof. He did not address himself to her once in the following hour; choosing instead to station himself behind one of the card-players, his gaze fixed and inaccessible, as he showed every intent to turn into a male Galatea.   
  
"Nothing the matter with him." The speaker, who had been introduced to Elizabeth as her new kinsman, laughed heartily. "Only Darcy absenting himself from felicity a while. An able man he is, a sociable man he... will become, I am sure, under his wife’s guidance. Shall I entertain you meanwhile?"  
  
His voice had made Elizabeth start, but she readily joined in his playful manner. "It is most kind of you. I am afraid that Quadrille is still a stranger to me in this room."  
  
"Ask our aunt to be your professor." Colonel Fitzwilliams had offered her his arm and was leading her to the head card-table, where Lady Catherine sat in pomp and a pompadour wig. "She is always keen for new partners, even if my cousin Anne –" Here the gentleman paused abruptly. Elizabeth sensed that here, at least, was revelation for her and composed her face into eager inquiry.  
  
"I meant to say, will not be leaving home after all." He spoke as if reluctantly. "Forgive me – this was a lapse of tact."  
  
" I may forgive, once I am told what sin." There had been, Elizabeth decided, enough floundering in the dark. "For I cannot see what Miss de Bourgh remaining at Rosings has to do with me. Surely, I am not my cousin’s keeper?"  
  
"No, but…" Her interlocutor wavered; cast a glance across the room to where Mr Darcy stood, still fixed in marmoreal card-gazing. "You are the wife of the man who was to marry her."  
  
So unexpected was this that Elizabeth first thought she had misheard. Mr. Darcy! Mr. Darcy had been Miss de Bourgh’s intended – and Miss de Bourgh’s own mother had staked his hand in a game! Had risked the establishment of her only daughter, a girl whose general frailty of health made her a less likely match than her fortune might warrant, on such a paltry whim! This seemed so little of character for Lady Catherine that Elizabeth could not help exclaiming, "Impossible!".  
  
Colonel Fitzwilliams, looking a little hot under his regulation collar, assured her to the contrary. The match, said he, had been settled when Mr Darcy was still in his cradle years, and it had been the county’s belief that he would fulfill it in his port-and-cheerot years.   
  
This was very remarkable news, leaving Elizabeth’s head very much swirled. Had she been at home, she would have run to take Jane in her confidence, the two of them huddled in their shared room. But home was far away and she was alone. Struggling for composure, she turned to the nearest scene that could provide excuse for looking away.  
  
"Lady Catherine is winning," she said mechanically.  
  
For Her Ladyship had garnered a stack of defeated cards, and was in the act of coaxing more to her elbow.  
  
"Aye, to her pride and joy. She is as old a hand at this game as Boney is at his, and equally hard to derout."  
  
Elizabeth turned slowly to face her interlocutor.  
  
"You have not seen her ever lose?"  
  
"My aunt de Bourgh? Lose at Quadrille? My dear coz, have you ever seen white turn black?"  
  
She had, Elizabeth thought, now. For the truth was settling in her mind, that Lady de Bourgh had not only risked but deliberately lost the hand of a man – a rich, handsome, high-born, sterling match for her unmatchable child –, and the truth was all blackness. It seemed to her that every glow from the fireplace... the white candles... the gilded mirrors, catching and flashing their light back tenfold... all were being sucked in by the news, leaving her trapped in endless night.

 

* * *

 

Her face must have paled, alone in that dark cloud of unknowing, for there was a hand at her arm. There was an arm round her waist – support, firm and steady, before she sank to a chair.   
  
But Elizabeth, a healthy person both by stock and practice, was a deplorable swooner. A moment's help was all that she required, and she was soon able to open her eyes and thank her rescuer. Much to her surprise, she found herself staring into Mr. Darcy's face, now returned to flesh and blood, and busy staring back with every appearance of concern. He must have darted from his station across the room, against every odd of his ever setting eyes on her again.  
  
"Are you quite well?" he asked, and, upon Elizabeth's reassurance, took their farewell from the company. He was not to be delayed, much less decoyed with tea or liquor: their coach was brought around and Elizabeth seated across her husband before she could reflect on his new kindness of manner.   
  
It was half past four when they entered the woods. The light, piercing the crowns of the trees, bathed the coach in a pool of green and drew a sigh of pleasure from Elizabeth. Her first journey to Pemberley had been accomplished in a mood little bent on basking, never mind walking, in a new county; but now, as the coachman took the horses along the main drive, she turned impulsively to Mr Darcy. Again, he surprised her by taking her at her word – even before it was uttered.  
  
"Would you care to step a little, if you are fully recovered? The air here is very pure; it might do you good."  
  
Elizabeth acquiesced, and the next instant saw her his walking companion. He walked well; that is, he attuned his pace to hers and did not expect her to mince or gambol or stop every other step to interject on the view. How strange, thought Elizabeth, that a man who could not be reasoned with at night, nor teased in the day, should prove himself such a sympathetic rambler.  
  
"Your park is truly beautiful," she said to atone for what she now felt to have been a foolish and unnecessary lack of civility.  _Truly_ was no lie. "Will you give me leave to explore it tomorrow?"  
  
"Why would I not?" He did stop, then, and turned to examine her. "It would be remiss of myself to keep you within doors, when the air is still tolerable."  
  
It was very surreal to hear him say so after his edict of the previous night. Elizabeth, who felt herself thirsting for a measure of reality, grasped at the solid trees and grass in her sight - and, she realized next, at Mr. Darcy’s arm.   
  
"Oh!" cried she. "I had better make the most of autumn, if it is to be my coming-out season."  
  
"And how do you propose to do that?"

"By having all our meals brought out of doors, e’en tonight. We shall eat by the river and gaze upwards, until the very ham in our mouths tastes like Mr Kant's infinite starry sky."  
  
"Will the stars not take offence at the simile?"  
  
"The stars have an old friend in me. When at home, I loved to stand at my window and tell them apart. We had – have – Orion standing guard over the farm, and the Little Dipper dipping right above the garden oak."  
  
"I am glad to say that the Little Dipper has followed you here, tho’ it is more visible in August."  
  
Elizabeth wavered, but the urgency was too strong. She could not ask him why Lady Catherine had thought him worth a jilt and a sleight of hand; what she could and did say was, "Not from my window. My room gives on the east side, and thus, I must go starless at night, unless I step - "  
  
"I pray you," were his words, in a voice so quietly desperate that Elizabeth knew not what to say next. She settled for, "Not even with you?"  
  
"Least of all with me," said he, his face turned away, yet the anxiety palpable in his voice. He only added, "That part of my house… is really seen at its best in the day" and fell back to silence all the rest of their walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The white Malamouc cap was pinched from Austen's early correspondence. Interestingly, the girl Jane fancied black for her visiting caps - a widow-y colour, that was praised nonetheless by her entourage.
> 
> Many, so many thanks for the lovely feedback this got so far. I promise more clues as to the Shades of Pemberley in the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /clears throat: Looks like we're headed for a six-chaptered fic after all! All my thanks to the lovely readers, kudosers and commenters - I'm thrilled with all the feedback!
> 
> And now, speaking of thrills...

A scholar’s daughter, Elizabeth had enjoyed an early acquaintance with many a tale and legend. Some had proved lovely, some merely quaint, others best left left to the compiling minds of MM. Grimm & Cie. They had, nevertheless, taught her that it is in the interest of young ladies left in conjugial darkness to take a resolution of light. The same had cost Katie Crackernut a romp with the fairies, but in return they had thrown a cure and a prince in her lap. And Psyche, for want of a candle, would have considered herself the wife of a beast still, and lived the rest of her days in fear and trembling.

As for Elizabeth, she might, if given a good tune, skip and turn; but turn and run were not her wont, nor forsake her candle rights.

She now understood that Mr. Darcy did not mean to keep her off the greater bulk of Pemberley. His edict was limited to ‘that part of the house’ - the apartments above that lay next to her room. It would be Elizabeth’s business to search them, although some hesitation (or vicarious distress at the memory of Mr. Darcy’s) made her elect half-measures… and explore by day.

It was nearly a week before she could indulge her whim. Derbyshire had been most consistent in its own, throwing every amusement in young Mrs. Darcy’s way until she felt herself living on little but grapes, grouse and gossip. Mr Darcy suffered them all with model stoicism and a daily new cravat. This Elizabeth saw; but she also marked his glance to herself amidst his obvious relief at homecoming, and the silent plea on his face when the last light gathered in Pemberley’s sky.

There finally came a morning of solace, cold and rainy, when Elizabeth found herself with no prospect of visiting and no fear of a visitor. Having dined early of a dish of chicken, she capped her plan by drinking half a glass of negus and complaining good-humouredly of a heavy head. No sooner had Mrs. Reynolds bid her to rest that Elizabeth fled up the stairs again. She paused at the spacious lobby, before she crossed it twice with a cautious foot. Yet it looked no darker than a lobby has any call to be, and Elizabeth rambled on lest she be caught red-footed. The principal bedrooms, hers and Darcy’s, she knew to be their safe quarters and saw no reason to mistrust.

The corridor, however, did not end there. On the one end was the picture gallery, which she could glimpse every morning on her way down. On the other, next to hers and the last in the hallway, was a little door. Small but dainty, its nutbrown wood gleamed like old gold (or, to Elizabeth’s practical mind, fresh hot fudge) in the lamplight.

Upon seeing it, Elizabeth felt oddly compelled. The handle was brass, rubbed to a glow, and she could not resist laying her hand on it. But try as she might, it would not turn. The little door was locked.

It was now a matter of urgency to make it open, come what may; and Elizabeth put both hands to the task. But the door would not give, and she was turning away, defeated at last, when she heard it – a muted, but unmistakable sound.

Somebody – or something – was humming a note within.

The moment she put her ear to the wood, the hum faded away. Elizabeth waited, but the note, soft as a young girl's breath, did not return. It was vexing; it was mortifying; it was not to be borne, and if Elizabeth could not satisfy her ear, she would at least sate her curiosity and try her way with the keyhole. Alas! The door had been locked from within, and Elizabeth had to withdraw her eye.   
  
She listened in silence, but the door was all reserve now.

With the silence, some of Elizabeth's quick parts stirred. Sternly, they told Elizabeth that the sound was  _a thing of nothing_ ; a simple trick of the acousticks, as it had been once before, when her uncle Gardiner gifted her with a large nacreous shell, a relic of the Caribbeans, to be acquainted with her ear. The shell had hummed, too, and Elizabeth’s mind now dangled the parallel before her - in vain. Reason could not root out her craving to hear the sound again, or find what lay beyond the door.  
  
Quickly, she recalled that, it being the last after hers, the invisible room must be connected with her own. She turned at once and walked into her apartment, where she eagerly inspected the adjacent wall. But it had been most thoroughly papered, though she now observed that the paper, of the same elegant yellow-and-sage pattern as the rest of the trimmings, was newer. It must have been more freshly applied. Elizabeth longed to see if it covered all of the surface, but the wall itself was guarded by a venerable wardrobe which was no trifling matter. Elizabeth was neither strong nor foolish enough to try and move it; and, frown as she might, had to concede defeat.  
  
By now she could no longer make Mrs Reynolds an excuse to shun her duties, and thus joined the housekeeper downstairs again. There was the kitchen book to peruse and a new gardener to instruct, and while Elizabeth did her best to entertain her mind with veal fricassée and topiaries, she could not help saying, "You must know Pemberley better than anyone here, I dare say."  
  
Mrs Reynolds nodded acquiescence. Elizabeth, having played her theme, moved on to a counterpoint. Stories, subjects, dimensions, prices: Mrs Reynolds knew them all, and Elizabeth asked for more with great perseverance. Still, Mrs. Reynolds' tale showed an undesirable trend to orbit round the grounds. Elizabeth could not interest her in Pemberley's upper floor; even the portrait gallery was bowed at from afar, before Mrs. Reynolds and her tales beat hasty retreat downstairs.   
  
Nothing would do but stark inquiry, and thus Elizabeth asked, "What about the little room next to mine?"  
  
Mrs. Reynolds' voice dropped to a hush.  
  
"I would love to have its key," Elizabeth continued. "Is it a music room? I have not seen one yet."  
  
"It was a sitting-room." Mrs. Reynolds was now standing. "My lady, I must really see to supper."  
  
"Was! Surely, it cannot be so ancient. The door panels alone –"  
  
"It cannot be entered. My master will not have it so." It told much about Mrs. Reynolds' confusion, that she now addressed Elizabeth as if the latter was a passing visitor. "Please, my lady, do not concern yourself with it. There’s nothing here you might see. It is -."  
  
Her last sentence failed her. Elizabeth could only press her with a stare.  
  
"Destroyed," came the fierce sibilant. "He made sure of that. My master is a good man, a brave and gallant gentleman,  _and he wrecked it to the bone_."  
  
She rose and left, but Elizabeth could not move. She sat quite still, unable to utter a syllable, under many a long minute.

 

* * *

 

That Mr. Darcy should ride home was inevitable. That he should find his wife waiting for him in the library, as delicacy, domesticity, and a critical want of other pursuits required, was foreseeable. Still, an hour passed without his presence, and Elizabeth found herself pacing the room in a trepidation of feelings. She wished and feared that he might come; she tried, vainly, to concile Mrs. Reynolds’ wild confession with the quiet reserve which she had always observed in him, and wondered how this fourth, unaccountable Darcy had been so obscured to her until now.   
  
"Obscure?" said he, and it took Elizabeth’s whole measure of heart not to cry out. He must have come in while she was sunk in her thoughts. "Yes, the rains have begun. The roads will be all mire and sucking mud tonight."  
  
"Ah," was all that Elizabeth said, her mind possessing itself of his words. They sounded like a warning; a portent, that the coach-and-four would not be hers to command.   
  
Mr. Darcy sat quietly at her side.  
  
"How pale you are," he said, looking in her face; but to Elizabeth, it felt as if his voice were falling into a well, out of which other voices rose - spectral lessons and parallels.   
  
_How pale you are this morning, said Mr Fox to his bride._  
  
_How pale how pale_  
  
_To the bone_  
  
"Had you not better let me pour the tea?"  
  
The next seconds were enough to see Elizabeth to the pot and secure her dominion over it. She was her mother’s daughter, and could be presumed to possess equal nervousness with her; but as her father’s child, she had learnt to shift for herself. Shift she did, and never quicker. His cup was grabbed; measured;  filled; trimmed with milk, and handed for his personal assent before she would grant hers the same.  
  
Mr. Darcy, alas, was too well-bred, or perhaps too cunning, to drink first.   
  
Neither could he be kept long from the subject.  
  
"Perhaps you should take –" He was rising again, and Elizabeth struggled to follow suit, but the fatigue of the day prevailed. "Tea is not strong enough. I have to insist – at least, let brandy lend its relief. You look a little ill."  
  
Elizabeth, in whose mind every idea was being superseded by terror of his brandy, could only shake her head. But Mr. Darcy would not be thwarted. There was he, at the liquor case, even now sliding the mahogany case open with a firm push of his hand. Next – but even then he stilled, for the library door had this moment come to life under a rap.

If the rap caused Elizabeth to start, the next sound was the least fitted to encourage dread. For the door ushered in a young man of a cheerful countenance, if slightly over-freckled, who, upon seeing the cups and saucers, exclaimed "Tea! Tea, upon my word! Why, Caroline, we are come pat on time. Here is Darcy the Married Man, quite transmogrified with carpet slippers and – oh!" (for Elizabeth had risen in turn) "I _beg_ your pardon, Madam. I am so used to seeing him endure his own company in impeccable gloom, that I lost myself in wonder. Pray receive my compliments – late, dripping, but truly sincere."  
  
"Charles, step to the fire and stop being absurd. Miss Bingley, pray come in. I believe that you have not met my wife."  
  
The new visitor, standing very stiff and equally dripping, only bowed a fraction from the waist. While Elizabeth was amazed at this turn of events, she could not help the impish thought that perhaps her corset strings had shrunk from the rain.   
  
She glanced over to Mr. Darcy, to see whether he would take amiss his guest’s suggestion that they share from the teapot, only to find him being the very model of a hospitable host. As the clock ticked on, as the Bingleys were plied with tea and showed no sign of being the worse for it, Elizabeth felt like making her apology – either to the pot or Mr. Darcy. The latter’s attitude made it plain that he and Charles Bingley were friends of a feather; nay, that Bingley used as a habit the rare and fine privilege of ‘ragging’ his host mercilessly. Mr Darcy’s replies were curt, but never mordant; and his amusement at Mr. Bingley’s scherzo of teazing could not be doubted.  
  
As Miss Bingley sat by her, silently dripping, Elizabeth’s discomposure increased. Had she been a fool? Had she been too quick, or Mrs Reynolds’s words naught but some local quirk of sentence? Had she –   
  
"– on to Netherfield, as soon as this rain abates. I gave them notice that we should be there by midnight, and the night is still tolerably young for our ride."  
  
"Nonsense, Charles. We had much better take Mr Darcy’s kind offer and spend the night here, or I shall be in a perfect  _petite mort_  by the time we arrive."  
  
Netherfields had roused Elizabeth from her trance; Miss Bingley’s misuse of French (which had both gentlemen wince) and rudeness in bypassing Elizabeth’s yet unspoken welcome, made her wholly attentive.   
  
"I would be happy," she now said, "to offer you some dry clothes in the first place."  
  
"Oh! that won’t be necessary." Miss Bingley, recollecting that, as Mr Darcy’s _obligée_ , she was due to address his wife with a modicum of grace, dripped a smile. "Pemberley has the best fires – this one is so brightly warm that I already feel at ease."

"Surely, Caroline, it is God’s ordained law that a fire should warm you, whether here or at Netherfield?"  
  
Netherfield Park, it turned out, was Mr Bingley’s latest caprice, and he could not be steered away from it. He had set his heart on taking a country seat even in the London season, and, as fate would have it, been smitten by a place not two miles from the Bennets' house. Elizabeth said so and received his new ecstasies, while his sister remarked aloud that they knew no one there – that is, no one worth inquiring after.

 The edit ruffled even her good-natured brother.   
  
"I hope," he blurted out, "to have the honour of an introduction to your family, Mrs Darcy."  
  
"I hope," Elizabeth said quietly, "that they may have the pleasure of knowing you." She timed her smile to Miss Bingley after a quaver’s rest, in the best Haydn tradition.  
  
‘Oh,  _families_.’ Miss Bingley, warmed up to a full capacity of pique, was rising to the occasion. "Truly, some families are much better observed from a distance, for the quaint and the picturesque do not bear a close inspection."  
  
"I fear," Bingley told his friend, "that here is a palpable hit to your portrait gallery."  
  
His sister cried out that such was not her intention, not one whit, and how  _could_  Charles say so, with the Pemberley gallery such a treasure trove of paintings. Had Mrs Darcy seen it yet? What, not yet? Forsooth! Miss Bingley was all astonishment at the news. But she soon recovered, and, as if struck by a happy notion, offered to take Elizabeth there before supper. Why, that abominable rain was half over! and the evening’s reds and golds the fittest accompaniment to the majesty of art therein, making it a  _trifle_  less daunting to a newcomer.  
  
Though Elizabeth would have much rather stayed with the civil two-thirds of the company, her pride would not desist; and she consequently led the way out of the library.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mr Fox quote in italics comes from a popular folk tale: he's the British counterpart to the French Bluebeard. 
> 
> http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-29.html


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear, oh my. Guys, I'm so sorry for the delay in updating this. It's been a long haul over writer's block for me, with real life throwing a number of deadlines my way. But I have not given up on this, and here's hoping some of you haven't either. Let me know if you're still on with Miss Bennet's Gothic adventures!
> 
> In today's installment: Elizabeth is taken on a pictorial grand tour... and makes a mind-rattling discovery.

The rain had truly abated, but the sky was still a far cry from Miss Bingley's surmise of reds and golds. The evening hour and the lingering mists forbade it, and while the day gave its last light, it was of a low and hazy character, rather like sunlit smoke. It mostly let the shadows out of the corners, crawling after the ladies' feet as they passed each tall window in the gallery. Elizabeth, made uneasy by the light, had offered to postpone the visit until the next morning, but her companion would have none of it; would be charmed to play cicerone; had an old acquaintance with this long room, which, forsooth, made it so familiar to her that she could, if challenged, tell every Darcy in it with her eyes shut and her bonnet tilted forward. All this Miss Bingley delivered in a great alacrity of manner, though her eyes were resolutely open and fixed on Elizabeth herself.  
  
Their grand tour was launched, from one family portrait to the next. The ladies were all beautiful, Elizabeth thought, while a number of men sported the full-fledged whiskers and shooting jackets that have marked out the landed gentry for the last century or so. As the centuries receded, so did the sitters: for the dim light made it seem as if they took a step back into the canvas, there to merge with its dark background, and became darkly elusive to Elizabeth’s gaze. Miss Bingley regaled in her knowledge of art, but Elizabeth neither knew nor cared about  _chiaroscuro_  and  _second distances_. Her interest was only revived as they progressed westernwards to more immediate subjects. When they stopped again, she was facing a large portrait of her husband, that filled half of the space between the principal high windows.  
  
"Here is a fine likeness!" she said before she could help herself, for the model's high forehead and clear-sharp, pellucid eyes were exactly as she had left them in the library.  
  
Miss Bingley did not speak; but Elizabeth could feel her gaze rest heavier on her face.  
  
"It was done some years ago, I dare say," she went on, entranced; noting how his face looked younger and lighter. There was such a smile over it as she had never seen, even in their somewhat carefree hours. It was better than handsome: it had all the strength and vulnerability of a truly sensible man. A naked face it was, insofar as a gentleman’s face can be said to be in this Adamic state.

"But how strange! it looks quite off-kilter as it is. If this was meant to be a centerpiece, why hang it so much to the –" and there Elizabeth paused. The portrait, she now understood, was one of a pair. While horses are said to fall and nations to crumble for the want of a nail, the wall stood up; for the wall showed not only a nail, but traces of indentations where another heavy frame had once hung on it.

Mr. Darcy's likeness had had a pendant, but that pendant was gone – only its imprint visible.  
  
Elizabeth, as she stared at it, felt a sudden pang.  
  
"Was this..." Not able to phrase the query to her satisfaction, she tried again. "Is that picture long gone? It seems a pity to mar the wall so. Surely, it must have been a thing of beauty, if –" She was about to say, if the sitter came of the same stock, but rephrased this to "if it was done by the same artist."  
  
"Oh! yes, a great, great pity." It seemed to Elizabeth that Miss Bingley was also considering her choice of words. "For the artist did nothing but justice to her. She had no equal for beauty."

 _She_.  
  
"Ah," said Elizabeth, the pang swelling in her throat.  
  
"Beauty, elegance and accomplishments." Miss Bingley, her subject found, was speaking up again. "Poor Mr. Darcy! He could not bear the sight of it, after such a loss; and thus had it put away. Why, only this time last year, he was _most_ unreserved with grief. She was everything to him, you must know. Whatever gave her pleasure had to be done in the instant. He lived for her alone, and when he lost her - he went quite wild with sorrow, forsooth."  
  
"Forsooth," said Elizabeth dully, staring at the ghost space on the wall.

 

* * *

 

Time seemed to take a skip, and she found herself seated at her table end, her wrists propped against its cool solid wood. Yet to her it felt surreal. She was given blancmange and couldn’t taste it; yearning instead for the pea-soup that had been her fare at Longbourn. Spare ribs, haricot mutton, a pudding solid with flour and raisins: thick, simple food, that came with the reassurance of _same_ and _sane_. Now the fastidious white soup dissipated, she felt, before her spoon was settled in her mouth, and the whole white scene before her, the linen and china that spoke highly of Pemberley’s hospitality, only kindled a sense of the spectral. 

All her thoughts were on that blank patch of wall and the absent _she_ who had had Mr Darcy’s smile...

"I have had your trunks taken up to the east wing, Charles. It is a little isolated, but I can promise you at least a quiet night. The wind here blows mostly westernly."

"West-west-north, I say. Fear not, dear Mrs Darcy: for all his Hamletian spleen, he is not of a mad disposition. Your presence here brings proof of it, after all."

Elizabeth forced herself to smile, even as she risked a glance above her plate. Mr Darcy’s face had taken a Renaissance turn: it certainly appeared to recede into the ambient gloom, past the flickering circle of candlelight. She could only see his eyes, two patches of dark in a patch of unsmiling whiteness.

"Are you quite well, Madam?" The ever-jolly, ever-kind Bingley seemed to have sensed the anxiety of her situation. Thankfully, he was placed at her right hand and could speak lower without endangering Miss Bingley’s wilful claim upon Mr Darcy’s attention.

"Only a touch of the headache. It is nothing; it comes and goes on days of rain."

"Can anything be done for it at present? The French would advocate the rubbing of a live toad to the forehead, but –"

 _Whatever gave her pleasure had to be done in the instant_. 

" – and if Caroline persists in being sociable, I myself shall whisk her away. You need an early rest, and a lady’s room, they say, is her castle."

The little room, thought Elizabeth. Mr. Bingley was still talking, his voice bodiless, dying away in the distance which already had a claim on him. He was not real; soon enough, he would be whisked into the far east wing, where no call of hers could reach him. She dismissed him and went back to the dark hole of the stairs, the darkened keyhole, the dark and empty hallway mirroring her mind. A sitting-room, Mrs Reynolds had said. With a sharp jolt of mind, darkness made visible, Elizabeth saw – Elizabeth knew that the room had been hers; made for her pleasure, a fitting addition to the Mistress’s night quarters, before it was walled off. _He_ had had it made, recently enough that the door still shone with a novelty of wood, the only gleam in the dark. And then –

 _My master is a good man, a brave and gallant gentleman, and he_  

Was she sitting there, when he wrecked her castle?

Was she sitting there now?

 _To the bone._  

"Elizabeth!"

Reality pounced on her, opening her eyes to the dish of fruit before her. They were apples, their dark red sharpened in the candle-light, waiting to be handed around the party. She took one slowly, feeling its heavy roundness. Its flesh, she knew, would be the purest white.

 

* * *

 

Midnight had never been so long in coming. She had seen Miss Bingley to the east wing, numbering the steps in her head as her guest led the way, her feet mentoring Elizabeth’s, the better connoisseur when it came to the lie of Pemberley. There had been other galleries, stairs striking new perpendicular perspectives: a maze of aisles and walkways that Miss Bingley, a Pemberley intimate as she liked to pronounce herself, had steered faultlessly. Then Elizabeth’s candle saw her back, a wink to the old rhyme once sung by Mamma at bedtime, soft upon the last sip of milk: _How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten_ … She walked with a somnambulist’s unerring flair, for the only fear excited in her was lest she be forced to stay by and entertain her guest any longer. She would not, Elizabeth decided: she would only entertain her own mind from now on, and when Mr Darcy’s step was heard in the hallway, followed by his inquiring knock, she put her candle out and, not without difficulty, tamed her fevered breath into a sleeper’s hum. After a while, she heard him pass into his room.

Then all was hushed.

It was an autumn night, it was a night of moon and wind. The wind stopped at the single pane of glass in the corridor, but the moon didn’t. It compelled itself in, and once on the inside, it sifted every form through its sorcerer’s prism. The rich Axminster rug, that had lately muffled Mr Darcy’s step, became moon-striped; its flowers a silver crop, glowing on. To Elizabeth, standing barefoot on the invisible line between the warmth of bed and that nightscape, the glow was a call. She swayed forward. 

The moment her foot touched silver, the hum rose to meet her.

_Be bold, be bold_

It felt shy and gentle, but Elizabeth knew that there was more to the hum than met the ear. For if this was the unseen woman calling out, then the hum came from one who had once commanded Darcy’s heart only to lock it away; first, stripping it to the bone so that nothing was left for Elizabeth but his sorrow, his veto, and his occasional manner of kindness. The lion’s share – the strong, living sum of Darcy, so beautifully caught in his image – was gone. If it endured, then it lived under her silver spell: silenced behind her little door, whose knob glowed the strongest yet, an eerie pulse in the night.

_But do not be too bold_

"I am his wife," cried Elizabeth with sudden energy, giving herself up to the tumult of her mind – the hot, quick-welling anger that was fear and frustration in equal parts. She cast her hand out, not knowing if the knob would sear or freeze it, but the touch never came to her skin. She felt nothing, saw nothing, sight and touch equally consumed in the heat of her dare.

Then, another sense came home. She heard a gentle creak; and as her mind, stirring at the unexpected noise, turned on its own hinges, it whispered to Elizabeth that the door had shut with a click - in her back. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Thanking everyone who kudosed and commented my previous late chapter - your good cheer was most delightful and quite appreciated!)

All at once, the room relapsed into stillness.

A lack of sound and motion both. For, though the wind had pushed its whine through every crack of window, all evening, like a wolf’s questing snout, it was not heard there. Nor was the moon seen across the pane, even as its wan light flooded it and revealed the room to be she-room; a girlish lair, Elizabeth thought wildly, or fairy crypt; eerie, empty, oh! so very empty, but for _her_ absence, coiling between each piece of furniture and the next. 

The centerpiece was a small pianoforte, its ivory keys a frozen row, as was the rest of the decor: from the coal grate with no live coal in it, only the moonlight rising and falling above the fender, to the charming set of chairs with their herbs and flowers blooming perpetually in a needlework garden. The room itself should have been a garden, Elizabeth now saw; not a graveyard. But the crayon drawings, hung on the wall in pride of place, looked pale and washed-out, and the piano’s ivories had a strange verdegris glow to them, as if they had been left too long in the damp. Now lending themselves to a better inspection, the stems of the clematis and thistles floated up to the surface of the silk, wetly, tangledly, leaving a reek of mud and salt in the close air.

The mud, the salt: Elizabeth’s head had begun to swim, her senses resurfacing almost savagely, and she turned it right with so quick a jolt as should have caused sharp pain. But the hot gust of blood did not come. Instead, upon turning to the door again, she was enveloped with cold. The cambric of her nightgown was nothing against it; it had let in other bad dreams at home, and it now let the cold frost Elizabeth’s naked shoulder and choke her on a breath of iced air.

She groped at the door knob, only to draw her hand back with a cry. The cold had burnt it as mercilessly as Monsieur Lavoisier’s azote. 

"What am I to do?" cried Elizabeth. She recoiled, and forced her last measure of will into her eyes. The light had grown too gelid for her to see clearly into the room: yet she stood her ground and struggled away from the numbing daze. The window! thought she, and turned; only to find that the pane of glass was now gilt-framed and one-way, showing only her own dark hair and the panicked clasp of her arms over her breasts. The frost blew soundlessly upon the glass, then melted just as quickly, and among the trails of humid condensation, Elizabeth made out a shape: tall, fair, with a face younger than hers and lost to a helplessness that set a childish foil to her figure, fully formed and womanly.

" _Oh, help me!_ " said the young  face, her words visible only, as Elizabeth saw them form at the surface of the glass. Hers were louder, both young women speaking with as little delay of time as made each the other’s reflection.

But the cold was flowing back, covering the whole expanse of the glass with a breath that turned solid-like upon the glass's solidness. Elizabeth could barely see the girl’s finger, rubbing at the frosted expanse from across its pale. The rest of her seemed to have vanished from the wrist down, though the finger scratched at its translucid gaol in an agony of will. The moving finger wrote, in slippery thrusts and glides, leaving a childish scrawl in its wake. 

 

                                                 [](https://imgur.com/GgggfXT)

 

It had started on its next letter, when the room changed again.

It crashed upon Elizabeth with a boom, a tumultuous sucking noise pierced with sharp short cries which she knew for bird-noises, harsher than the piping of partridges at home. These were no field birds: for, as the glass darkened, it showed only the reflection of waves, higher, _higher_ , as the glass shook under their massed weight. The reek was everywhere, before the first hard, haphazard impact of the waves struck, all the scarier for being an accidental slight. They roared above Elizabeth’s head, as she struck her foot blindly to a floor that was no longer beneath it, every faculty pitting her survival against that cruel swell now pushing her hair, like so many algae, _into her mouth_ , – gasping, choking, – until the next slap and splash tumbled her –

Her shoulder was caught. Arms rose: hers and another’s; palpable, even as they grasped one another and the boom fell to a hush, only Mr, Darcy’s breath heard in the dark.

For the darkness stayed on, no longer seen through a glass. 

"Come," said he, his word brilliantly _there_ , like his person, as they reeled forward. Only when she heard the real wind, still at play outside, did Elizabeth open her eyes. The corridor unfolded before her; and in it, at her side, the man leaning sideways so he could touch the curls of her hair; touch her hands ; touch, with his fingers, the very air before her mouth, as if to ascertain himself that she was breathing it.

He had come for her, was Elizabeth ‘s first lucid thought, whereas the next was no thought at all – only the clutching of his arm. Together, they passed her door, which was closed, and paused at his, which was not. The glow behind it held no silver, for Darcy himself had banked the fire in his grate, perhaps in preparation for a sleepless night.

"Come," Elizabeth echoed him - barely supporting herself, yet feeling that they were both somehow come home.

 

* * *

  

As soon as he saw that sunnier light, Mr. Darcy seemed, indeed, to come to himself.

He brought the largest chair to the fire and begged Elizabeth into it; next, fetching a footstool for her. The banyan which he had worn over his shirt and knee breeches – for her call had, extraordinarily, reached him half way into his night attire – was now tucked around her, adding an inside layer of warmth. This done, he offered to bring Mrs Reynolds from her own quarters (that he did not give precedence to Miss Bingley in this matter pleased Elizabeth greatly) and, upon her plea for his exclusive company, fell back to his customary silence. But his eyes spoke for him, for his pride would not suffer him to lower them, though they were heavy with rue and some undeclared resolution.

"I have done you a great wrong," was his premise. It came in a voice which, unlike his gaze, was very much low.

"Half a share, I," said Elizabeth. When upset, she was wont to emulate her middle sister and quote the classics, though with her tongue in her cheek. And what upset her at the moment was to see him stand before her in the weary manner of a defendant. Not so long ago, she had suspected him; had, verily, been a frisson away from branding him with that word all-barbarous in sound and sense, the uxoricide. And yet, when she raised her eyes to his face, she saw nothing in the turn of his features but a tender landscape of face and neck, still lost in pallor.

She saw a fellow victim. 

"You have more cause to be my judge tonight, for you had but one request of me, and I flouted it."

"A selfish one," said he. "To bring you here – this very here, so close to – my _wife_ – while knowing what has been a secret to all but a few… oh, it is unpardonable."

"I can pardon," said Elizabeth, motioning him to the nearest chair; but it was in vain. She took a breath. In her rambles, it had not unfrequently happened that one path led to a wall of brambles, in which case reason dictated a turn and a tangent. "I _shall_  pardon, if you atone for a wrong with a truth."

Mr. Darcy appeared to reflect.

"Surely, I have faced the worst by now," Elizabeth reminded him gently. 

His response was not what she expected. "If I do, can you find it in yourself to grant one more request?" 

So great, so renewed was Elizabeth’s empathy at his show of trust that she only answered, "Anything".

Mr. Darcy gratified the word by sinking slowly into the second chair. "My sister, who was ten years my junior –"

"Sister!" Elizabeth cried out irrepressibly. Miss Bingley, she now perceived, had been... unerringly misleading in her own account.

"You are surprised to hear me mention her, no doubt – and wonder at my not doing so at an earlier opportunity. But, dear Elizabeth, her tale is so sadly, so unfairly full of sound and fury" (Elizabeth coloured, both at the endearment and his acknowledgement of her Shakespeare quote) "that it still pains me to the quick. She herself was the quietest girl in the world. And it adds much to the cruelty of her fate, that she should now be a cause of torment. She –"

He broke off, and Elizabeth bent her head to his, so that her hair fell loose against his cheek and curtained his words.

When the tale resumed, it showed her the girl again – tall and womanly, yet as much of an innocent as was ever _out_ before her time. This was a story told time and again by MM. Fielding, Sterne or Smollett: the young girl sent alone to London for her first season, and from thence to Ramsgate, to enjoy its pier and promenade with the cream of Kent. The best, the worst: the friend from her childhood days, who, to revenge himself on Mr. Darcy, had snaked his way into Miss Darcy’s heart, made tender by the loss of a father.

"I should have taken his place by her side. But Ramsgate is loud with noise and strangers, and I, like my sister, do not take kindly to either. Instead, I amused myself in fitting this little room up against her return. I loitered – let one day pass, then two, before I set out to bring her home. And when I joined them – and found that he had fastened her faith to him with the one proof of it that she might not take back… she could not bear my gaze." 

The rest was silence: or rather, the room had shown the rest. The Church looked on self-murder as a sin, but the face in the mirror had given her death another cast. 

After a while, Mr. Darcy spoke again. 

"Her body was never recovered. The high tide took it away, and the low tide did not bring it back. For her too-late sake, I hushed the affair and only spoke of an accident. The year went by, while I went on mourning her, to the point that the county learnt to hush her name and my aunt de Bourgh denounced me as a churl and a recluse. I _must_ marry, said she. While I held only an indifferent affection for my cousin, the thought came to me – I fear that you will think me vain."

For all her shock, Elizabeth found herself smiling. "That you would ensure a next of kin’s happiness, in reparation for another’s neglect? If vain, Fitzwilliam, not unreasonably so."

She felt him start at this use of his name. Why? They were husband and wife, their vows sealed lately in moon and fire, and this new intimacy of their bodies. She felt every throb in her chest harden and swell in answer to his, as the tale held them in its grip. There was night in the tale, too, which now moved on to Miss de Bourgh and her mother’s winter visit. They had stayed for dinner, and the former, on learning of the pretty sitting-room, had paid it a single visit in the dusk. 

"It blighted Anne," Mr. Darcy murmured. "She had never been strong, but the shock left her sickly to the death. There was no hiding the truth from her mother. I tried to make amends; I had the room sacked and its content burnt or scattered away; I myself tore the paper from its walls. I locked its door and melted the key in this very fire. But Lady Catherine’s heart has been ever since against me. She did agree to keep my secret, for its root, said she, lay in a Darcy’s infamous conduct that would cast a shadow on her own house if made public. All thought of marriage fled her mind. It was given over to my punishment, which was achieved, along with the release of her daughter, by her extracting my promise to marry another whom she herself would select."

 _My nephew could not have chosen better_ … The words carried a fiercer sting than had been made aware to Elizabeth.

"Marrying," she said quietly, "insult to injury in selecting me."

"No!" Mr Darcy’s voice rose in fervour. "She may think so. And I might, once, before... but... oh, you do not know – I showed ill-will, yes, and you deemed me cold, when I have been burning with fear at exposing _you_ to this shock, and with–"

Elizabeth kissed his cheek. It was cold; she put her lips to it again and let them stay.

"You are so alive. Elizabeth, your wit is warm, and your laughter, and your eyes which are only dark so they can catch the warmth of you all the better and flash it back. You make me yearn for life, Elizabeth, which has kept me apart for so many years."

"But no longer," said she. "Not evermore." 

She was trembling with the fatigues and excitement of the night, and he misread them; sank to the floor and took her bare feet in his hands, took and raised them to his working mouth, which left a red bloom on each. Her blood had been called up, and it answered: the throb a second beat, waking more of her as she put her arms to his neck and said, "Kiss me".

The taste of a man’s mouth was a strange new thing, as was the firm touch of his face. He mumbled something into the kiss, and she laughed; her head swirled by _alive_ , she kissed his his lips, their fullness, the warm sheen of moisture at their seam. The banyan slipped further down, and he gave the sigh of a man who has touched ground again.

"Touch me," urged she, and he did; his hands still of one mind, but his mouth of another as he pressed it to the low of her throat, waking a heated trail until she felt her breasts rising to meet him, and the wet rasp of the cambric chaffing their flesh when he sucked it into his mouth. She cried, the beat straining at the close of her legs. 

Then his mouth was away, and he was pulling her into his arms. 

"I, I –"

But he would not help her. He would only hold her, fast yet still, his heart the only speaker. Elizabeth shut her eyes tighter. She was exhausted; Mamma’s daughter after all, her nerves belatedly claiming their ties of blood. She would give him his hour of rest. Outside the day was inching forward, soon to be entailed to the chattering Bingleys. Yes: she would rest for now and plan for to-morrow, and the next morrow, all of their after-morrows…

 

 

... She never heard him open the door between their rooms. He must have carried her in his arms, for she had no knowledge of returning to bed. When she woke up, the sky was a pure, pristine grey, like the inside of a raindrop, and the housemaid could be seen coming and going between the wardrobe and an open trunk. There was, as always, a tray for her; but it held an unusual letter with his seal on it, and the letter read, _You have granted me one last request – here it is_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Darcy's "banyan" is a Regency-era male dressing gown. Made of silk or wool, it is both comfortable and elegant, to the point that some gentlemen wear it at home when entertaining callers. (Don't think Darcy did, though. He's not one for dilettante habits.)


	6. Chapter 6

"My dear Mrs. Darcy, say no more." Mr. Bingley looked over to where his landau stood below the terrace, its mudguard already set up, Elizabeth’s trunk being tied to its roof. "All journeys fly in pleasant company." 

Elizabeth, who had actually said very little, now thanked him.

"My only regret is that Darcy’s steward made a bid on him first, the rascal. I dare say that the estate needs him, before the great colds are on us. But your husband is right – it is much safer for you to be off now and drive with us than to travel post by yourself. Hopefully, he will be joining you before Martinmas."

Martinmas was November 11th, ten days ahead, when the saint is said to ride over England releasing winter from his cloak. On Martinmas, no new seed is sown. The cattle is slaughtered, and laborers tread alone and away from home to the hiring fairs. Elizabeth forced herself to smile.

"Hopefully," said she.

 

* * *

 

"I would not have us part in anger."

To give Mr. Darcy his due, he had not turned coat and fled the breakfast room. His pelisse was just what it ought to be – dark-haired, grave but comely, like his person as he took leave of his wife.

Elizabeth, his note crinkling in the pocket tied to her waist, made no reply. She felt less angry than oppressed by his reasons, the reasonableness of which had hers thorougly beaten. _I cannot bear_ , he had claimed, _to think of you hereabouts, until I find an arrangement that will persuade me of your safety. My business will keep me away most of this month; Longbourn is still a shelter. I pray, and shall beg if I must..._ Every word was soberly just; but every word showed a filigree of torment, and Elizabeth, too stubborn to be intimidated at his will, had given in to his pain.

She held her hand out. "Shall I write to you from my other home?"

 

* * *

 

"Are you quite comfortable, Mrs. Darcy?" Miss Bingley’s eyes were positively lucent as she played coach hostess. "You look so very pale and jaded. What an utterly surprising reversal, to find you _our_ guest."

"Caroline – "

"A temporary one," said Elizabeth, holding the adversary’s gaze across their invisible card-table.

"My dear Charles, I am only saying what a topsy-turvy day this is. Unless it is in vogue amongst the Derbyshire brides to leave their husband’s homes and go to their fathers’?"

" _Caroline!_ "

 

* * *

 

"Of course you are welcome, Lizzy," cried her mother, her ecstasy only shaded by the need to remind Elizabeth that nothing had been prepared for her: consequently, there would be one less roll for Jane (who had offered it) and for Mary (who abjured all terrestrial foods at breakfast but cocoa). "Well! my love, but I did think you looked a little wan yesternight, and ought to have accepted Mr. Bingley’s arm up to our door, that I could acknowledge his kindness by giving him some tea – and to his sister."

"What, and upset the roll calculus anew?"

"Oh, hush! Mr. Bennet. Still, he called this morning with fruit from his greenhouse, which may do as well, to be sure. Not that I care for purple grapes. But it was the sweetest thought, and I had Jane convey my thanks to him – the rain always brings out my gout. And now, Lizzy, tell me all about Pemberley. Is it a very fine place? And neighbourhood? I hear the county is quite merry in the winter." 

" _I_ hear that it is quite snowy, along with the rest of England."

"Oh, Lord! then Lizzy should have company. Perhaps Mr. Darcy will be so good as to let her take Kitty or Lydia back with her? His manor is so large, so allegedly lofty, it can only be a vast deal improved with a young lady at large!"

Elizabeth, closing her eyes, tamed her breath to the slowest _andante_.

 

* * *

 

It was only dispelled by the soft coolness of linen to her brow, replaced by softer lips.

"No fever, thank Heaven. Will you have a little milk?"

"Milk and grapes – now am I come to the promised land. I hear the latter were delivered in person?"

Jane’s answer loitered for a while.

"Mr. Bingley has been – most civil to us. He inquired twice after your health, and said that he would be very grateful if we showed him the lie of the land – being new to the county." The faint flush overspread in Jane’s voice rose with her next words. "That it would give him much pleasure to entertain us at Netherfields at the earliest opportunity."

Elizabeth smiled. The _andante_ had done her good enough, that she found herself equal to a measure of teaze.

"Since when," asked she, "have you taken to the royal we?"

 

* * *

 

The next speaker had not as good a chance. "I," Elizabeth enunciated loudly, "am resting."

"La, but, sister! You cannot guess what news –" 

Elizabeth pushed her cheek further against the sofa cushion.

 

* * *

 

"I think it very sensible of you to sacrifice the flimsy amusements that lure us in favour of matrimony to an interval in the bosom of your family."

"Mmmmm."

"Do not, dear sister, hesitate to come to me in the spirit of mutual female enlightenment. We can compare notes and statisticks, and discuss amiably the merits of the single versus the conjugial disposition in our sex."

" _Mmmmm_."

 

* * *

 

The next day was more tolerable. While Elizabeth had feared that her presence would prove too strong a tonick for her mother, who would take her in due parade to every borough worthy of Mrs. Darcy’s visit, Mr. Bingley staked his first. He came; he saw; more to the point, he was seen – at close quarters, or as close as the tea-table allowed – and given a strong seal of approval. A mother’s regard is no victory when Caesar is over one-and-twenty, pleasant, parentless, and can afford a town house _and_ a greenhouse both. But Jane gazed from the heart. 

"What does it say," she told Elizabeth on the aftermath of their first visit, "that I feel as if I were missing him even when we are together in his parlour?"

"You are hardly together, when his sister flanks his right and yours – all of yours – are breathing curious delight down your curls. But Mamma’s orders are that I chaperone both of you on horseback tomorrow. Bingley ought to see Sir William’s park before Jack Frost pays _his_  call, and I shall be sure to clip-clop two paces behind."

"You have not changed, Lizzy." Jane paused, a little pensive. "That is…"

But I have, thought Elizabeth, turning on her left side. Though their mother had offered Her Ladyship, as she said gleefully, the benefit of their spare room, Elizabeth had begged for her share of Jane’s bed. Back at home, she had grasped at every use and habit of old, almost desperately, only to find their comfort gone. Longbourn’s sun-weathered stones, the stout greens of its prairies, the autumn croak of its ravens and the familiar clucks and grunts of its farms –all of them paled before her memories. What she felt was a reversal of Jane’s present woes, for though Elizabeth, too, missed a certain gentleman with a degree of agitation that only came short of tears, she saw and sensed him everywhere, despite his being far away. The Pemberley ghost was now a _he_ ; at night, at Jane’s oblivious side, Elizabeth raised him in the hot penumbra of her thoughts. She was too respectful to her sister to do more, though her fingers ached to take upon themselves Darcy’s broken pilgrimage over her mouth, over the swell of her breasts, perhaps even further down - to that tight, secretive knot now made aching too. Darcy had awakened in her that which she had felt only fleetingly before, yet knew to be the first, promising spark in the bonfire lit between man and woman. Elizabeth, while still a maid, was no simpleton: a childhood spent in the vicinity of a country farm would have ensured that. But it had not taught her how to make her awakening known, when the awakener’s penance for it was to keep her miles and months away.

It was not right, that Beauty should have been sent home against her will once the Beast had proved himself the very pink of attraction.

It was _infuriating_ , and Elizabeth did not take well to infuriation.

As fate would have it, the ghost coalesced the next day – if vicariously. Mr. Bennet called her in his library an hour before dinner time. He was looking grave and anxious.

"I have," said he, "received the strangest communication. Lizzy, what is going on between you and Mr. Darcy?"

Elizabeth’s fear at once got the better of her ire. She had written to him once, to let him know that she was well arrived; with nothing of him in return. 

"What do you mean, sir? Nothing is going on –" Yet this struck too near the truth for comfort. "Nothing is the matter between us. He has proved himself entirely honourable and kind to me."

"So it seemed. I did worry at this marriage of yours; but having you home, and hearing you praise the man to quite a _missish_ degree, had made me tranquil. However..." 

Here, Mr. Bennet glanced at the paper in his hand.

"I must ask you this. Did Mr. Darcy keep his marriage vows – all of them – to you? His ring sits on your finger, but…"

 _With my body I thee worship_. He had, in spite of his worship meeting its end in its beginning. This was Elizabeth’s truth, ready for proclamation.

"He did, he did! He is perfectly amiable – body and soul – perfect in all respects, but in sending me here. I have spent two months with him in his house, and I feel that, were he the last man among England’s worthiest, and I prevailed upon to choose, I –"

"Good gracious, child!" Mr. Bennet righted his pince-nez, which had faltered on his nose under his daughter’s vehemence. "I am only the messenger. Your husband –"

"I will not hear one word against him!"

"Be he the speaker?" said Mr. Bennet wrily, and gave her another sheet of paper, its folds still gathered under a stiff blot of wax. "This was enclosed for you."

Elizabeth, her heart battling the last thumps of outrage, opened it. It was covered with Mr. Darcy’s now familiar hand. His absent voice drowned her father’s as she read, though pierced now and then by the paternal tones.

… _In vain I have struggled_ , wrote Mr. Darcy. _It will not do. I admire and love you with every ardent fibre of being, but this force of feeling must be what makes me act for the best. I have been buffeted between one resolution and the next_…

"The man appears very sure of himself."

_…as to the best means of never exposing you again to poor Georgiana. The truth of her apparitions, I must fear, is that she will not suffer me to take a bride. While she was never one to bear a grudge, it may be that her death has changed her – has made her incensed, or anxious to punish me in the very matter in which I failed her. It may be that in giving you my name, my faith, in making over to you every breath of my heart…_

"He clearly states here that your marriage is a sham." 

 _…I have been selfish enough to think of selling Pemberley, and leaving for town with you – or, indeed, some other country. Yet this would be a coward’s step. Nor do I stand assured that ours would remain a twosome. If Georgiana wills me to stay, and stay alone, in this our home, I owe her no less. Her request to you was to find her. On these terms will she conditionally release you of her terrors. But she cannot be found._ 

"I shall find, says he, that he will annul his vows willingly."

_The sea, that took her, has now dissolved – forgive my brutality – all of her fleshly self._

"Marriage have been dissolved before due to such, ah, carnal deficiencies."

_Only her spirit trapped, and trapping yours, as long as you stay by me. No love could survive this ordeal, Elizabeth, and no lover should endorse it. This only leaves one course of action. I must, and shall, make your exile from me permanent._

"His offer of compensation is very generous, as is his promise that all public censure –"

"How _dare_ he!"

"…Child?" 

"That I am not," said Elizabeth angrily, "unless time has gone in reverse since I left. Did it take a leap into last century? Am I to be sold at the Barnet inn, sir, with a halter round my neck? In which case I must bid the pianoforte adieu, and take up moo-ing speedily."

Her father only sighed, and, taking the note from her hand, cast both papers onto the grate. There they took fire, possibly from exposure to the _fair_ , but far from _frozen maid_ in the room.

"Lizzy, I shall trust that you know what you are doing. And you will, I hope, trust me not to mention word of this situation. But I dislike it. I dislike it very much."

 

* * *

 

So did Elizabeth. The situation was, indeed, hateful. Change it she must, if he would not, and quickly, too – before he could blacken himself past rescue in the public eye. But how? While she had ‘pluck to the barebone’ (Lydia’s new coin of phrase, picked up God knew where), she had no idea where to apply it. Thus, her distress was equal to Darcy’s, except in one particular. In his haste to misrepresent himself to the world, he had, Elizabeth thought, misrepresented the other Darcy. He had not seen her, but Elizabeth had: face to face, in the closest possible manner, with only a mirror’s liquid screen between them. Possibly the freemasonry of spirit which, between very young women, goes beyond any etiquette forced upon them by their elders, had come into play, or Elizabeth’s natural sympathy: whatever it was, it had made Elizabeth, scared as she was, understand something of that silenced mind.

She was certain of one thing: the late Miss Darcy was not a vengeful spirit. 

She must have known, even  _then_ , that there would be no return from her watery grave. Why would she, if incapable of spite in life, have set an impossible proviso to a beloved brother?

Like all ghosts, she had come and gone – not at cock-crow, as by rule, but in giving her brother leave to intrude upon the ghastly scene and draw Elizabeth away. All that remained was a conundrum - FIND - and the memory of that poor, pale finger drawing another vertical stroke. Mr. Darcy had parsed it as the first stroke of ME, but Elizabeth was not so sure.

The week passed, and she could think of nothing else. She witnessed, with half-absent joy, the lighting of romance between her sister and Mr. Bingley. It was as fresh and pure as the first flame in Netherfields’ prodigious chimney (decreed by Kitty large enough to roast the New Year’s goose _and_ gander), but her heart was distracted. She could think of nothing else but her ‘other home’ which she had been made to desert, and which pride only (bequeathed on her by Mr. Darcy, along with his other goods) forbade her to reclaim. She began, and left, a number of letters, none of which were to her satisfaction. After a while, sick of them, she let herself be persuaded into the solace of visiting, and lagged behind her mother and sisters while St. Martin rode before their carriage.

The next feast was to be held at their aunt Phillips’s house – a family haunt, yet haunted this day by a crowd of red coats, as they found it filled with the militia. _This_ , Elizabeth learnt at last, was the great news that Lydia had been so keen to impress upon her. There was a regiment in Meryton, there to bivouack all winter, and a great deal of its upper crust had re-routed itself to her aunt’s, that stronghold of hospitality. Dim outdoors, it positively glittered inside with epaulettes. 

"My daughter, Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy, Mr. Denny. Sister, will you introduce Lizzy to Colonel Forster? My daughter. My _married_ daughter. Oh! Beg pardon, lieutenant – excuse my elbow. Lord, how crammed we are! Lizzy, a glass of water. My daughter, lieutenant, Mrs. Darcy from Pemberley – the Derbyshire Darcys, not that there’s so many of them, I dare say." 

Elizabeth, one hand on the jug of water, paused. The jug and glass were perched on the chimney sill, for, apart of the main table now supporting a game of lottery, the other two had been folded down to half their size so as to make room for the assembly. And above the chimney, facing the dutiful daughter as she filled the glass, was a mirror. A smaller, humbler sibling to its gilded counterparts at Pemberley, but of the same ilk, and equally suited to fill Elizabeth’s sight with what it held.

Once again, she saw a face. It _was_ vengeful, to the point of ugliness: its features warped from a fine balance of tones and planes to a lampoon-like image of spite and caution. Then, quick as the paring of a sword, the face changed. It became charming; it thrust to please.

"George Wickham, madam. I should be delighted..."

Elizabeth, turning from the glass, let her new yellow poplin flare out in a curtsy. 

"The delight is all mine, Lieutenant Wickham."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid" is the popular song hummed by Mr. Wodehouse in _Emma_.
> 
> Austen wrote her sister in 1813 that in her opinion, green was Jane's "favourite colour", while Elizabeth would have worn yellow - sealing the collective headcanon that Jane is a blonde and Elizabeth a dark-eyed brunette.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there, guys. Almost! As some of my wise readers noticed, I'mma need one extra chapter.
> 
> (Apologies for the late update - this one was a doozy to write.)

"So, Mrs Darcy, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham."

This, a week later, was Miss Bingley’s disdain on its best behaviour. Yet she had to be content with innuendo, for once again Elizabeth had been bold, had been bold… but not too bold.

The odds of her finding the man who had crushed and shamed her husband’s trust, letting death follow where ruin led, had been so rare, so utterly shocking, that Elizabeth’s blood (never one to lie low) had rushed to her head. She had taken one look at her inflamed countenance - and then, obeying an instinct that was yet without a name, she had turned away from the glass and smiled.

He would, her head told her blood, take the credit for that blush, and if he did, something could be made out of it.

What? She had no idea. She still knew very little of him, when he and she had sat apart, her mother having been claimed over to apportion the lottery prizes. One of the two smaller tables held a bit of hot supper; at the other sat Mrs Darcy of Derbyshire with her new acquaintance and every appearance of civil self-command. The room was filled with an ebb and flow of talk that screened their own conversation effectively from the general ear. 

He was very handsome. He was also very good at playing his beauty like a card – not a trump, but an unassuming two or three that nonetheless won him the first and decisive trick. He wore his looks easily, with an air of nonchalance that coaxed his partners in talk into backing his game and taking his side. And she would have, Elizabeth thought bitterly; for all that she was older and supposedly wiser than Darcy’s dear dead sister, she would, had she met him in her salad days. She watched him poke at her marriage with the meekest hint, wrapped in obliging attention, and she thought, here is my chance. 

"I have spent three weeks in the same house with him," she had replied, and left it at that. Nothing but the truth, and nothing in the letter of it that could be used against Mr. Darcy: the less honourable meaning was all Wickham’s to choose or leave, and she saw the very moment when he chose.

"And then left for here?"

Elizabeth raised her closed fan to her lips and said nothing. It was enough to spur him on.

"I believe your match was not made – forgive my want of delicacy, which I must charge to an excess of concern – by yourself?"

The tale of Elizabeth’s inordinate good luck was spread far enough that she, swallowing his impudence simply nodded at the closest whist table. Then she let her mouth crease into a dimple, imperceptible to all but he, and said, "he offered to put two thousand pounds at my immediate disposal". Again, the very truth, though the offer had not pre-dated Elizabeth’s marriage: it was part of Darcy’s infuriatingly fair agreement to release her.

But as she looked into Wickham’s greyish-green eyes, which the poet would have called ‘glaucous’ and Lydia ‘the most dearest you ever saw’, she saw him being hooked, lined and sinkered.

It was the flaw in him – the rogue in his porcelain perfection – that he could not let pass this occasion to glut his hatred. Much as it is the fire’s _raison d’être_ to burn, even after it broke the wood into cinders, the abuser must go on resenting the abused. Why? For no other reason than they exist, a live testimony of the wrong made to them, which can only be buried under more outrage. ‘Two thousand pounds,’ said Elizabeth, and watched his dark symptoms increase at the prospect of taking away another thing of Darcy’s – her flesh, his money, blended together as one more Darcy spoil.

It did not matter that he would shame himself in taking the spoil. _Darcy_ would be shamed, publicly this time, and that was victory enough. 

George Wickham looked at her earnestly, caressingly, and Elizabeth felt a soft November chill.

 

* * *

 

It was a thin line to tread, and Elizabeth took care to keep every word, every dalliance, within the public eye. Having refused to be Lady Bountiful, showering her sisters with rings, ribbons and Derbyshire-minted beaux (Bingley, she told Mamma firmly, was Jane’s just desert), she now passed herself as Lady Liberal; making a point of being gracious to her husband’s childhood friend, be he a head-servant’s son. But he had to be baited with more than a smile. Thus Elizabeth, sickening a little, dipped into the rosewood jewel box which her maid had thought to pack, and gave him a gold-layered hand to shake at their next meeting. 

And the third, and the fourth. 

"So, Mrs Darcy, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham."

 _I hear_ , Elizabeth hoped, was vastly exaggerated. But the line was thin. And gossip was tinder, waiting only for the mildest spark to take. As winter commenced, the good people of Merryton loved nothing more than a fine, jolly, exciting piece of ‘news’: it warmed them like a Yule log. 

You only risk what you value, Elizabeth reasoned with herself. She was risking her good name as Darcy’s wife because it was the highest, dearest stake she owned, and her spirit backed it. Having found Wickham at Georgina’s request, she had to hold him in custody, until she could parse the girl’s dying wish and fulfill it in what way she could. But it was evident that in the meantime she was letting herself, and others, stand in jeopardy. She thought of Fitzwilliam, riding among the stark dark trees of his park alone, alone, all, all, alone. One too-bold move on her part, and who knew what _he_ might hear? 

And her sisters. Bingley had not proposed yet, which was all very well and proper after a fortnight’s acquaintance, but…

"They have a house in town," Jane confided one night, closing her eyes as she always did when speaking from the heart. "Caroline says they will be departing there, to spend the Christmas-time, and do not know when they will be back."

"She loves to sow doubt," said Elizabeth, wondering under her breath if Caroline had been seeding _I hear_ in her brother’s ear. "I would not trust any garden produce of hers. Charles is in love with you, and only waiting for some word of encouragement to say so."

"I don’t know that I can – "

"Ye dinnae ken, or ye dinnae want?" Elizabeth murmured, teasing her with a quote from the late Mr. Hill, their gardner, of Scottish persuasion.

She had no answer and very little sleep, and it took all of her fortitude to hold her hand out to Wickham the next day. He had called at Longbourne, and Mamma had been prompt in enrolling two-thirds of her brood to sewing duties, except for Lydia. For it was Mamma’s idea, as fixed as the lodestar, that dear Wickham was too shy to woo her youngest directly, and that his frequent talks with Lizzy were but the prelude to his song.

"Oh, taradiddle!" was Lydia’s ripost, when Elizabeth tried to persuade her into persuading Mamma of the contrary. "As if Wickham needed chaperoning! He only engages with you because of your grim old husband. In any case, the --shire will be leaving for Brighton next spring, and so will I, for Mrs. Foster has bid me to."

"What?"

"Aye! We’ll see if the sea air makes him any bolder!"

Another girl of fifteen exposed to Wickham’s company, in another sea-town. It was impossible to conceive; it was impossible not to fear. Elizabeth knocked at her father’s door, but Mr. Bennet, having once made his dislike clear, had buried it and himself under his books. There he stayed, not to disturb.

 

* * *

 

"So, Mrs. Darcy, I hear you are _quite_ delighted with George Wickham."

The second week had elapsed, leaving Elizabeth at a loss to make plans. The first had been to gold-lure Wickham back to Pemberley in the hope of extracting from him some grain of contrition, or at least corroboration, and with it some overdue catharsis.

But young ladies _grow_ rather than _are_ ensnarers by nature. A gradual process it is, making it necessary for them to earn their stripes one at a time: from one’s pet starling to one’s elder sister, governess, mamma, papa, and – their gold epaulette! – full-length suitor. Elizabeth lacked the time and will, and Miss Bingley’s words had convinced her that to commit to a tete-a-tete drive with Wickham, extending over a day, would be folly.

No sooner had she rowed away from Scylla, intent on keeping Darcy’s name from the storms, that it endured an attack from Charybdis. Charybdis was short, black and smiling, and came with a prayer-book under his arm. He also came with a view to marriage.

"Could it be," Elizabeth asked the visitor at supper, rushing where even Mrs. Bennet feared to tread, "that my aunt De Bourgh directed you to us, sir?"

Mr. Collins bowed with black gravitas.

"Indeed, Madam. Lady Catherine has been so good as to imply, that since I was instrumental to her nephew’s good fortune, she would have me drink some of the water that he was given so as to never thir -"

"An extraction from John 4:14!"

"Hush, Mary. My dear Mr. Collins, a most excellent phrase!"

"Indeed," said Elizabeth drily. Once again, she had received intelligence that Hell has no fury like a mother scorned. Having branded Darcy with _a_ _nobody wife_ , Lady Catherine was now intent on providing one of her subalterns for his brother-in-law – another manœuvre to pollute the shades of Pemberley.

Then she recalled how Mr. Collins had stepped on her ten of spades and, in so doing, had made himself instrumental to another fortune. 

"You are very welcome here, sir.’

 

* * *

 

Welcoming Mr. Collins proved a simple task. He liked cocoa at morn and spiritual elevation at night, and since Mary was an authority on both, they were soon to be observed comparing notes on the beans-to-sugar ratio and other grave topics. It was about this time that Mary chuse to replace her customary Haendel with the Complete Hymnal Book of Worship, a change that sent Mr. Bennet burrowing further into his shell of in-folios and Elizabeth straight into Mr. Bingley’s arms. He was being ushered into the parlour when she ran out of it. 

"Come in, and come quickly!" she told him after an apology. "Music has proved ‘moody food’, indeed – this is so dejecting that I shall be in your debt if you make it stop."

"Gladly," said he, "though I am come to bring you news of a ball – and hardly of Emperor Joseph’s opinion, that public dancing ought to be conducted in silence."

He was then introduced to Mr. Collins, and, upon being told that the gentleman had officiated at his friend’s wedding, lined his compliment with an extra invitation.

"Do not expect any grand affair," he added, ‘beyond white soup and a brace of violins. But everybody here has been so kind and charming to me"– here, he addressed his gaze to Jane, who kept hers principally to her lap –, "that I wished to reciprocate. It is to be held on the 29."

"A felicitous date, sir, it being St. Cecilia’s Night. Indeed, I shall be only too happy to write down and recite a eulogium –"

A mittened hand cradled a hem. 

"That is, have Miss Mary Bennet sing it for the company. At length," Mr. Collins added, deaf to the stern crackle of newspaper issued from the library. "And on that note, if I may be permitted a demure quip, I address my congratulations to you. A patronness – an _elevated_ patronness – of music and matrimony both is an excellent choice, sir, if I say so myself. I wish your endeavour all success."

"As do I," said Jane, her voice so unexpected that its very softness boomed itself, as it were. It was unlike Jane to speak out of turn, and she now blushed, her face overset by such a glow that that it might have been lit behind by a pink taper. But it was like Jane to forego her turn in favour of another’s, and her sister saw with joy how she no longer hesitated to make Bingley glad. He, too, saw it, and her joy was no fuller than his.

"I shall look forward to it," said he, his voice trembling with it. "As shall Netherfields – in its best apparel. We have only just restaured the hall of mirrors, which my sister assures me is worth a French king’s approval, and I hope that it will – I hope, from all my heart, that all of my house will please you."

"Oh, Jane treasures up everything," Lydia cried unthinkingly. "La, but _I_ will be sure to look – if any of you lends me a comb, for I broke all of mine’s teeth. Mrs. Hill says that you can see your true dear’s face if you gaze upon a glass at midnight, only you have to be combing your hair. Or eating an apple. Do spare me the roasting pig’s apple, Mr. Bing –"

"Excuse me," said Elizabeth, rising from her seat. She could feel herself trembling, though from an agitation that was more than joy. "I think my father has just called me."

 

* * *

 

"How good of you to call on me, Elizabeth. Are you, by any chance, come to a decision as to that… status quo of yours?"

"I may, once I consult with you."

"Lizzy"’ Mr. Bennet sighed, putting the _Meryton Gazette_  aside. "You and Darcy have now spent a fortnight apart. And while it is in the Ton to see as little of one’s lawful spouse as can be arranged around the clock – a justifiable clause –, we country mice are of older fashion. Any further delay in Darcy joining you, or in you returning to Pemberley, shall set the tongues a-blaze. What more can I tell you?"

"You can –" Elizabeth wavered; but the memory of Jane’s courage was fresh with her. "Sir, you can tell me about ghosts."

Mr. Bennet, a true-blue Voltairian if there ever was one, stared at her.

" _Ghosts_."

"Ghosts," Elizabeth echoed intrepidly. 

"Child, is this the heart of the matter?" But his tone was the farthest from encouraging, notably as he carried on, "and to think I called him a man of sense. Pray tell, what spirit is’t that prevents Darcy from playing the man? A White Lady, perhaps, in the Master’s bedroom? Or did he mistake his spaniel pup for a pheasant, as Sir William’s father once did, and heard its spectral bark ever since at the peak of bliss?"

"Father, this is nothing to make sport of."

"Well, old Lucas certainly _disported_ himself shamefully towards his lady." But there Mr. Bennet paused, before his satirick strain had the better of him. "My love, surely you are not crying?"

"I am not in need of consolation," Elizabeth cried, though she was indeed. "I need my father’s wisdom, howsoever absurd the object.’"

The fire in the grate was all she heard next, until the _Gazette_ slipped, its rustle unheeded, all the way to the floor.

"Ghosts," Mr. Bennet mused. "Shades. Phantasmas. Any particular you wish me to expand upon?"

Elizabeth drew a hopeful breath.

  

* * *

 

That same evening, having fully partaken in Jane’s quiet ecstasy, she let her sister go to sleep first with a promise to blow her candle out within the next hour.

The other light at her command was still weak and unsteady, its particles held together by a grace chance that Elizabeth hardly trusted herself to savour. It was a motley light, made of a saintly legend and a night devoted to music and spectres; a hall of mirrors; a clergyman guest; and Mr. John Tregortha’s _News from the Invisible World: or, Interesting Anecdotes of the Dead_ , lying dusty and forgotten behind her father’s rack of pipes.

Hope was the binder, cementing these vague and unsubstantial parts into a bright new plan. But the plan would only shine if the chief part of it was executed now, while Elizabeth’s candle had wick to burn.

She put her pen to the paper before her.

 _My dear_. This, however, savoured of a closeness which he had forbidden. No, not forbidden – only made impossible by dint of his one-sided sacrifice. She took up the pen again.

_My dear, you have made your sister’s peace a proviso for our reunion. I would not have it otherwise. But provisos must be met –, and thus, for her sake, if not mine, I must ask for one more proof of your affection. At the end of this month…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emperor Joseph's decree that all ballets ought to be conducted in silence or not at all had been (in)famous in his time. He did make one exception for Mozart.
> 
> My own crime has been to move St. Cecilia's day one week forward - traditionally, it is held on November 22.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we are. It's always a treat to write for this fandom, and I want to give thanks to all of you who left their warm feedback and put up with my late updates. Here's hoping you will enjoy this last leg of the journey!

The 29 came – an odd day by nature – made odder by Mr. Bennet’s announcement that he would join in the evening’s revels – and, with it, the snow. It was, if not general in England, at the very least lieutenant-governor of Hertfordshire, where it had begun early in day and season both. 

‘Every shrub in white gloves!’ said Kitty in the carriage, patting her own with a young girl’s easy-come, easy-go happiness. They were new, Elizabeth’s gift to her as a tribute to the fresh new page now turned in the family book: for Mr. Bingley’s ball was to do double service by proclaiming him as a betrothed man.

‘I could not be happier,’ Jane confided to her sisters. ‘I have always loved the snow, and used to fancy myself a Yule bride.’

‘And Cecilia heard your vow! Ah, daughter, there’s a model for you.’ 

‘Did you hear that, Jane? You must take your mother’s words to heart, my dear, and not fall short of spousal martyrdom. Or you will make her very disppointed.’ 

This sally could only prompt Mr. Collins, sitting vis-a-vis Mr. Bennet, to a long and litotic retelling of Cecilia’s woes. To the latter, it might have been a piece of Poppish cock-and-bull about a lady who entered her bridal duties by applying for an exeat, on the claim that she was already conducting an intrigue with her guardian angel. And Valerian, rather than commit her to Bedlam, had complied; nay, had forsaken his Pagan lineage for her sake, only for the newlyweds to lose _both_ their heads as a result. But to Mr. Collins, it was an exemplary tale; recited with every grave tone and the speaker only once refering to ‘carnal congress’, Lydia’s cue to decoy the talk toward the Hunt’s Banquet and how _nearly_ dashing the pink coats were, compared to the militia’s red coats.

Elizabeth, sitting very straight so that her curls might retain their tendril state, kept her gaze to the night. It could have been the night: or it could have that Cecilia’s course of music, love and violence raised strange echoes of Georgiana in her mind. But while the land moved past the carriage window, its dim forms passed into the tale and, while as they struck Elizabeth’s perceptions, became a puppet shadow theatre. The silver birch tree guarding Sir William’s pasture was a frost maiden, shielding her honour from the scarecrow that bolted across the pane, once -, black –, gone; and the wooden sign that pointed to Netherfields flashed furiously forward, its too-long arm a continuation of his sword. Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly; on opening them again, she saw that the glass bore the imprint of her face, pale and fixed, superimposed to the virginal landscape and the night.

A window could indeed be a mirror. A mirror, perchance… 

The sight of Netherfield, fountaining with candlelight like a winter solstice, was a relief. At this moment Elizabeth craved the warmth of society, and she was glad of Lydia’s voluble laughter when it ushered them in over the footman’s voice. Here was an antichamber leading to the main rooms, and there was a bustle of motion, as they were half coaxed and half carried by the general influx to where their hosts were standing.

Jane, a precocious martyr, greeted Miss Bingley first.

‘I wish you all joys,’ Elizabeth told Mr. Bingley, once she had prised him loose from Mamma’s ecstasies. She paused, wary of wishing for more. But he must have parsed her mind, for he took her hand and his advantage of the bustle to whisper, ‘I shall send word to you the moment he comes. Where will you see him?’ 

‘Here,’ said Elizabeth. She was too squeezed and pressed against by the guests to have much of a view, yet over their heads she could see the glass pannels, each splendidly cradled in its gilt ogive. They lined the walls, not quite to their full height, yet high enough that their top tiers would catch and toss the chandelier lights to one another, aloof and radiant, too self-absorbed in their play to note the human traffick down below.

‘Why, here? My dear Mrs. Darcy, you will catch your death of draughts!’

‘Yes, here. Do not ask – I have set my heart – call it caprice – brother, please!’

His eyes marveled, but his ready voice said ‘Of course’. Jane came over; Elizabeth was handed to Miss Bingley’s curt bow; but not before she, not for the last time, gave thanks for his good grace and sympathy. Once, they must have been the first step in Darcy’s pilgrim’s progress to trusting a friend again; now they revived Elizabeth’s strength of purpose as she progressed to the drawing-room.

 

* * *

  

The company was free to move in a circle. The phrase, however, must not be taken as a circumvented way of denoting the dance – for _moving in a circle_ has become a national duty, to the prevalence of which rotatory motion is perhaps to be attributed the giddiness and false steps of many among our elite. County people such as Elizabeth’s friends and relatives had no such pretension, and were happy to limit their roundabout ways to the Netherfield rooms. Dancing there was; eating a small (by name) supper; and both gave ample opportunity to watch and be watched. 

Elizabeth followed the _ton_ : she, too, spent the first hours rambling back and forth in the drawing-rooms. If she felt Miss Bingley’s glance as they crossed each other, or her father’s, they only chafed her cheeks to a natural rouge. But they were not enough to desist her from looking, and looking in vain, to find Wickham among the cluster of red coats. She had to make halt and be admired for the pearls in her hair; she had to answer Sir William’s quip on marriage as the new Silk Road with an invitation for Charlotte to come and visit her in the spring; she had to eat syllabub. Her rounds had indeed dwindled to a modest zig-zag when they crossed with another’s: for Elizabeth, turning to put her cup down, caught a glimpse of glazed lambskin and a slip of paper.

‘What is this, Kitty?’

Kitty blushed, for she was still of an age when envy of her elders prompted obedience.

‘Only a note.’ 

‘I thank you for enlightening me, though partly. For whom?’

When Kitty’s face took on a mulish air, Elizabeth, still grasping her hand, now showed her own. ‘If ‘tis Mr. Wickham,' said she, 'I had better call for Colonel Forster and let him be a party onto this. He will be glad to play go-between – once he has perused it.’ 

This prompted such a derout on Kitty’s face that Elizabeth, pitying her, gently took hold of the three-cornered note. It held a line of Lydia’s schoolgirl writing, telling Wickham to meet with her for a romp in the gardens and tell nobody, ‘for the better fun’. The note was signed.

 _Oh, Lydia_. _Even in your wrongness, you stay a child._

‘And thus is the note delivered,’ she told Kitty, slipping it into her bodice. Not a moment sooner: for a red coat had singled himself from the cluster, and was making their way to them. 

‘Mrs. Darcy.’ Suddenly, her hand was at his lips. It was covered by a wrist-length glove with a lace frill; and before he released it, he drew a slow, sly trail of his own fingers over it, from wrist to tips. They never touched skin, but the oblique promise of his gaze – to bare more of her – caused a sick confusion in her. She forced her head up and mouthed, _Midnight_.

‘Sir!’

Fatally – inevitably – another Bennet had been privy to his impudence. And, as fate would decree, it was the male of the species. In any other occasion, Elizabeth would have found joy in this rare, yet flamboyant attack of feelings in her father. But now! It could not have been worse timed. 

‘Sir, you will leave this house at once, or, by God – ‘ 

It was Elizabeth’s good fortune that Mr. Bennet, contrary to his spouse, was unschooled in the art of loudness. He spoke in a fierce whisper, which Elizabeth had no difficulty in out-voicing. ‘Why, yes, Father,’ said she, placing her still-gloved hand on his cheek. His frown she could not cover, and thus parried it by passing it off as mock-outrage. ‘It _is_ imperative that you honour me with this minuet. As your married daughter, surely, I am due precedence over my sisters.’

Mr. Bennet’s brow, stuck between a scandal and a rock, grew ominous.

‘If this man – ‘ 

‘Father. I pray, rally your _spirits_ ,’ said Elizabeth. She spoke quietly, but with such emphasis as to make Mr. Bennet start, then still, then follow her willy-nilly to the next room, where the minuets still prevailed.

The dance was formal enough to suit Mr. Bennet’s years and pacing, though he was not so easily soothed.

‘Lizzy, have you spent your last farthing of sense?’

‘I beg you, sir, speak lower!’ For Mr. Bennet, that late pupil, was proving a quick master of loudness. 

‘Are you –‘ Mr. Bennet paused. Mr. Collins, promenading Charlotte before them, had put the entire line to a stop while he took a deep bow from the waist. Gallant as it was, it pushed the more rotund part of him up and into more of Mr. Bennet’s minuet space than was agreeable to this gentleman.

‘Lizzy, you told me that tonight would see justice done to the dead.’

'Ay, if I can be an instrument to it.’

‘By suffering Wickham’s liberties?’

Elizabeth took another series of short steps, one that permitted a glance at a charming little ormulu clock. It was now half past eleven.

‘I may safely promise you _never_ to let him renew them.’ 

Mr. Bennet sighed. ‘I do not know what to trust, child. Very well, what would you have me do? Ask our hostess for a black candle? Or those fine feathers of hers?’

Elizabeth laughed – Miss Bingley’s ‘fine feathers’ were mostly on her head, sewn into a velvet bandeau. One or two were black, a compliment to her auburn head, and swayed as regally as Mr. Bennet’s favourite turkeycock.

‘No, Father. I do not plan any fumigation upon my sister’s betrothal. But there is one thing…’

 

* * *

 

 

‘For _Heaven_ ’s sake!’ thought Elizabeth as Mary caught her arm exactly ten minutes later. She might have know that her father, however complaisant, would dig his heels at playing his beloved flute to Mary’s hymnal solos.

‘Ah, Elizabeth.’ Mary shifted the bulk of her music over her left elbow so as to appropriate her sister’s arm. ‘The very person whom I seeked.’

‘I am not worthy,’ said Elizabeth wildly. ‘Go and find a better performer!’

‘My dear sister, do make some refection. Bar you, whom can I ask?’

Elizabeth stared at her. ‘Surely, any of our friends… or Mr. Collins…’

‘It seemed not very proper to ask Mr. Collins. Not when he is to be the beneficiary of our carnal congress.’ 

‘Your… Mary, have you partaken of the syllabub?’ With growing dismay, Elizabeth watched as Mary stuck a pencil between her teeth and burrowed into her reticule. It was evident that Mrs. Nicholls, the Netherfields cook, had been lavish with her port, and that that Mary, her head swirled by the wine, sugar, whipped cream, sugar and wine, had taken a scholarly resolution against her wedding night. Elizabeth groped for a parry.

‘Now, if you could just answer a few dozen queries…’

‘I shall, if I must. But you should know…’ They stood in a corner, behind the thick damask curtains which Elizabeth desperately trusted to pad the noise of their exchange. She put her eye to the chink at their parting, and inspiration struck. ‘…that you are not be the only pretender to his hand.’ 

As regular as the clockwork tiger at London’s Tea Company House, the curtains flew apart and a roar was made audible. ‘How _dare_ you!’ Lydia cried out, startling the music sheets out of Mary’s arm. ‘How dare you concern yourself with a note of mine? You had no right to steal it!’

‘I do apologize,’ said Elizabeth meekly. ‘It seemed not very proper to let a guest of ours see it before Mamma had vouched for it.’

The flash of understanding in Mary’s eyes, heated up by the syllabub, was immediate. She took the breath of the well-practised singer, and Elizabeth, slipping out of the curtains, left them to their comedy of errors. The evening had reached enough of a cadenza that might cover her sisters' skirmish. 

Two steps into the room, she found Mr. Collins ambling alongside her. No amount of cadenza would hurry his step, she saw; and she grabbed his hand accordingly.

‘Mrs. Darcy –!‘

‘Mr. Collins, I expect my husband any moment now. May I have the pleasure of your company while I wait for him?’

Mr. Collins’s amble was sped to a scherzo. He would be glad – the gladdest, the happiest indeed – he had no idea Mr. Darcy was to grace them with his presence – Lady Catherine (they were side-stepping the dancers) had given him no such understanding – but if Mrs. Darcy wished for her mantua, he would go and fetch it at once –

‘Too late,’ Elizabeth said, half for herself. ‘We shall make do with – yes! Here is a brazier. And, how fortunate! There is another gentleman to keep us company.’ 

She turned her face to Mr. Wickham. It gave her a fleeting jolt of pleasure, not unlike the brazier’s cinders, to see his own freeze, then fall. Whatever the tales he had spun for _his_ good fortune that implicated her, none, she wagered, featured a parson. He now looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

‘I followed your wishes,’ he told her, his whisper _hiss-ish_. ‘What is the meaning of this, Elizabeth?’

Even the use of her name could not ruffle her. ‘Ah,’ said she only, approaching one of the panels. In the midnight hour, with no guests about and only the brazier coals’ share of light, the glasses held more shadows than shapes. And since the mirrors lined the walls, and the walls faced each other, the shadows struck an infinite perspective, each mirror carving a door within a door within a door, that let the viewer into darkly multiplied worlds. Elizabeth held her breath. 

Far away, in a world of fireplaces, food and music, a weak voice could be heard. Mary must have reached her goal after all.

‘She loved the pianoforte,’ Elizabeth said quietly. ‘Didn’t she, sir? Was there one, that she played for you in Mrs. Younge’s lodgings?’

She heard his contraction of breath, quieter, a preparation. _Yes_ , she willed him to hear. _Not our tryst, sir – your trial_.

‘I cannot, for the life of me, fathom your mood.’ Wickham smiled, pivoting as if to take Mr. Collins as a witness to a woman’s whim. ‘I think Mrs. Darcy had better step inside, sir. She may be a little hot with wine, and her head – ‘

‘I am very cold,’ Elizabeth said quietly, her gaze to the glass. ‘Mr. Collins, is the name of Tregortha familiar to you? My favourite author.’

While this _non sequitur_ left Mr. Collins baffled, he bravely rose to the quote. ‘A most respected scholar in our clerical circles, Madam. He was, if I recall, godson to the Earl of –’

‘And an authority on the customs of departed spirits?’

‘Well, that too.’ Mr. Collins, still baffled, cleared his throat. ‘A laudable subject, though not one I would expect to draw the attention of fair ladies.‘

‘He does say,’ Elizabeth mused aloud, ‘that spirits will haunt not one locus, but a _type_ of locus – or medium – of such a sort as reflects on the nature of their death. Look upon this glass, Mr. Wickham. It is beautiful, but not quite transparent – none of our English mirrors are. The best of them will look dark and watery, come midnight.’

Mr. Wickham made a sharp motion as if to disentangle himself from the hour and space, but his progress was cut short. The main door had opened to let in a fourth party, dark-haired and dark-coated, his pelisse still dusted with the outdoor snow. 

‘I would stay if I were you, George.’

Elizabeth’s heart leapt sideways. _You at last_ , it said, _you first, ever you_.

‘The mercury, that one can find in a mirror’s backing,’ Mr. Collins observed gravely, ‘is indeed said to be the fluid through which souls are drawn from beyond. But I see that Mr. Darcy is with us! My humble welcome to you, sir.’

Mr. Darcy bowed, though his eyes were on Elizabeth. They were exhausted, and she saw, with an ache of tenderness, that his face had grown lanker. He did not speak again; but let his thick coat slip from his shoulders to hers, there kindling a shiver as it spread the warmth gathered by his body. 

‘You have come,’ said she, her voice rich with sensation. The chamber was cold, very cold indeed; as if the penumbra were chugging out its own chill, but he was there – her lover, her husband -, and all would be well. All manner of things would be well, as long as he stood by her, and they between Wickham and the door.

‘You called for me,’ said he, sober but soft.

Mr. Collins’s teeth could be heard chattering, ‘This is really an excellent refreshing air’. 

‘Mr. Collins, you once officiated for us.’ Elizabeth put her hand in Darcy’s, letting herself overflow with the warmth of his arrival. Her strength gathered, she went on. ‘Will you do it twice? Will you, I beg of you, read the Prayer for the Dead?’

Mr. Collins made polite, _But surely, dear lady_ sounds.

‘It would be of great service,’ Darcy said quietly. ‘However inconvenient, odd, or unseemly our request, I shall make sure to repay it, sir.’

‘This is insane!’ Wickham, on finding his exit barred, turned fiercely – but Mr. Collins, oblivious to the lie of the antichamber, now blocked the inside door. ‘Darcy, your wife has been dangling after me in the public eye for _weeks_. Let me go, or, I swear to God, you and she will be the butt of every laugh from here to Mayfair. ’ 

Darcy did not move, nor did he flinch. ‘Mr. Collins,’ said he. ‘Pray to the dead, sir.’ 

And Mr. Collins did, chilled and baited in equal parts. The vespers rolled from his lips one after the other, and as they did, the brazier’s lights leapt up in the penumbra and made the dark pools of water to spread. _Though death ensnares me_ , Mr. Collins enunciated, and, as if the glass had become porous, Mary’s voice sang back to him, _Though the waters thereof rage and swell._ No, not her voice, Elizabeth heard with a shock. The hymn was eerily faint, but the voice was pure.

Suddenly, the light fused up in each mirror, from the ever-recessing core to the watery expanse. It condensed into a figure; blurred; then neater, crossing forth into each larger plane, which multiplied the white wet face as it thus resurfaced. 

‘Sister!’ came Elizabeth’s plea. It could have been Lydia, it could have been Mary, or Kitty, or – God forbid - Jane in another time; another tragedy. She let go of Darcy’s hand and held hers forth. ‘Georgiana, dearest, I brought him to you – I brought both of them.’

A dull shock of sound signaled that Mr. Collins had swooned to the ground.

‘Dear God in Heavens, it is her,’ said Darcy, his voice thick and wet. 

Wickham, his eyes wild, pivoted right and left. But there was no door anymore: only glass, running up to the ceiling and spreading forth, over their heads and beneath their feet. Everywhere was Georgiana, white and pressed to the translucid pane, her eyes on him. There was no vengeance to them, Elizabeth saw; nothing there but a deed of presence, a shy, loving prayer to be seen, acknowledged, absolved, tinged with the infinite _why_ of the innocent. 

One instant, they all stood, transfixed. The next, Wickham leapt forward, his fist high, and swung it down at the glass. They heard no sound – no crack, dull or sharp – but Darcy’s cry of anguish -, and then – 

Wickham stood looking at them, his lips moving. His fist was still battering at the glass, his scream darkly visible, but the doors were drawing him in, one by one. His image shrunk; the red splash of his coat endured for another second, filling the mirrors’ cores – 

\- then nothing. 

Elizabeth lifted her head from Darcy’s embrace and looked. Georgiana had returned. 

(Alone and serene, which Elizabeth and Darcy, not for the last time, took as the extra consolation that Mr. Wickham, wherever his current whereabouts, had not been deported to her plane of being.)

She smiled at them, all shyness gone: her brother and her brother’s bride. Her hand, a pianist’s hand, arched and firm, touched the glass gently as if in a caress. And while Darcy stood still, he took his glove off and mirrored her gesture, her sweet good-bye.

The light it was that drew her away, while, faintly and far away, the living applauded.

 

* * *

 

‘How wonderfully these sort of things occur!’ Mr. Collins said faintly, yet feelingly, once revived with port.

He did accept their invitation to come to Pemberley and hear their vows again. More wonderfully, he agreed to keep the matter private from Lady Catherine, who, Elizabeth said, should not be imposed upon at such a time of year.

 

* * *

 

 _It’s a sorry matter_ , Mrs. Bennet would later write to Elizabeth, _that our dear Wickham should thus have decamped without a word to any body_. _I have exerted myself on Lydia’s behalf, for, as you know, it was my heart’s wish to have three brides in our family. Well! But Colonel Foster only gave me a lot of faradiddle about W.’s debts, and your father has been so odd about the whole matter, I do think it better to let it lie to rest. Lydia, I am happy to say, is of too bright a constitution…_

 

* * *

 

 

The snow had been busy at Pemberley, but so had Mrs. Reynolds, a stranger to repining in her masters’ absence. She welcomed them in a new apron, and, having seen to the teapot’s entrance, took leave of the library with a simple, ‘It has been very quiet here, sir and madam; very quiet indeed.’

‘And so say all of us,’ said Darcy, smiling. ‘I for one will be glad of stillness.’

‘Will you, sir?’ Elizabeth, seated on the thick rug at his feet, so she could teaze him with her upturned face all the better, laid down her bun. ‘If so, perhaps you had better fetch that rope, after all, and lead me to the next market. I I for one have no plans to be a still wife – not in _any_ respect.’

She saw the pleased rush of blood to his cheek and rejoiced. He had kept mostly silent on the drive home, and she had let him make his peace with Georgiana’s, but now was otherwise. Now was November gone, and December spoke of clear skies and hot bonfires and a child’s coming, and times of mirth for loving hearts. 

‘Elizabeth... ‘

There would be plans to make; a sister to greet, if not four, and an empty room to close. This, however, was December’s hour.

‘Pardon me if I am forward. But’ – as she laid back on the rug, laughing, and watched the bronze shadows of the fire play on the gold-etched bindings of the books – ‘if we _are_ to be married, ‘t'were well ‘t'were done quickly, my lord husband.' 

The rug was warm and the fire was near, and so was their moment. Propriety would have ordered them to her room, but it was a good way off and Elizabeth would wait no longer. She took his proferred hands and pulled; and smiled in pleasure when he, readily if a little stiffly, slipped to his knees on the rug.

‘Something old,’ she spoke in his ear, pointing at the books. ‘Something new’ (her finger to herself), ‘something borrowed’ (the rug), ‘something blue’ (the sky, a Byzantine azure beyond the coffered ceiling). ‘Your bride is come, Fitzwilliam.’ 

He kissed her, then, and Elizabeth knew the taste of him again. The books turned their chaste backs on them while she embraced his neck, so that their half-begun progress could resume, and whispered to him of that sweet ache, until his sighs covered hers and the rug creaked voluptuously under their shared weight.

Above their heads, the sky continued limpid over the park; while Pemberley sheltered them, vastly wise, and added their warmest hour to its secrets.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The short passage about the phrase "moving in a circle" was pinched straight from the Divine Jane - it's one of my favorite tongue-in-cheek Janeisms. 
> 
> The less sharp remainder is all mine.

**Author's Note:**

> (One day, I will sit myself, take a deep breath, and ask the sitter why the dickens I can only write P&P fic when Halloween wheels around!)
> 
> All my thanks to the anons who saw this fic bud in snippets on a certain meme and encouraged its progress. All period-related mistakes mine and mine only. I'm going on the assumption that a licensed marriage could in fact be performed within forty-eight hours, as testified later by Mr Jingle, he of Pickwick fame, to Miss Rachael Wardle.


End file.
